Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hernandez, Francisco

HERNANDEZ, Francisco, Spanish naturalist, b. in Toledo, Spain, in 1530; d. in Madrid, 28 Jan., 1587. He was physician to Philip II., and was sent by him in 1572 to Mexico to study the plants and animals of that country. Hernandez wrote a large number of works on the natural history of Spanish America, some of which are still in manuscript in the library of the Escurial. Among his published works is “Francisci Hernandez rerum medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus, seu Plantarum, Animalium, Mineralium Mexicanorum Historia cum notis Joannis Terentii Lineæi” (Rome, 1648). This appears to be the same as a similar work in Spanish, entitled “Plantas y Animales de la Nueva España, y sus virtudes por Francisco Hernandez, y de Latin en Romance por Fr. Francisco Ximenez” (Mexico, 1615). The title of the latter book indicates that it was at first written in Latin by Hernandez, and the Rome edition is an extract of the original work.