Professor Roger Bartra is Emeritus Research Fellow at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, UNAM, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico. He has written several monographs in English for a number of North American University Presses, as well as publishing widely in Spanish.

One can only welcome such a thoughtful and scholarly contribution within the context of sixteenth-century Spain, a scintillating epoch largely off the radar of most medical historians, and appreciate the inspired idea of the Iberian and Latin Studies editors to translate this important book into English.'