Aztec & Mesoamerican Medicine

Aztec and Mesoamerican medicine is documented in the Badianus Manuscript (1552) — the earliest known illustrated herbal from the Americas — which recorded over 184 medicinal plants used by Aztec physicians at the time of Spanish contact.

Aztec ticitl (physician-priests) treated illness within a cosmological framework that connected physical health to ritual, calendar, and the favor of particular deities, alongside sophisticated practical knowledge of plant preparation.

Epazote, cacao, and other plants documented in the Badianus Manuscript remain in active use in Mexican traditional medicine today, and the manuscript itself remains a foundational reference for historians of Mesoamerican botany.