Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/742

The charitable order of San Juan de Dios was established in Mexico in 1604 by Cristóbal Muñoz, who together with four other friars had been sent from Spain for that purpose.^[1] The building originally intended for them having been given to the Hipólitos, after some negotiations they obtained the foundling hospital of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, and there they established their hospital on the 25th of February. The laudable object of the order—the assistance and care of the sick—and the zeal displayed by the members in the discharge of their duties, soon gained the sympathy of the population, and in 1606 one of the brothers was sent back to Spain to obtain from the king licenses to found new establishments. Almost simultaneously requests for more friars were made and acceded to by the prior. Henceforth the number of hospitals increased rapidly, especially to ward the north, and before many years had elapsed the society possessed houses in most of the principal towns.^[2] All the different hospitals were united as the provincia del Espíritu Santo, under the jurisdiction of a commissary-general, appointed in Spain. In 1636 an attempt was made to establish a government independent of the order in the mother country, but the effort failed, and ever afterward the society in New Spain remained subject to its control.

 

Among the special monk-chronicles of the sixteenth century a prominent place must be given to that of the Franciscan province of San Diego de Mexico. Chronica de la Santa Provincia de San Diego de Mexico de Religiosos Descalzos de M. S. P. S. Franciscan, Fray Balthassar de Medina. Mexico, 1682, folio. In common with writings of this class it is mainly devoted to recording

1. Medina, Chrón. S. Diego, 11, followed by Vetancurt, Trot. Mex., 37 gives Gerónimo de Seguera as the founder, and says that the original number was 16, but that only four arrived in Mexico.
2. In 1605 they entered Colima, where the hospital de la Concepcion was given them; three years later they gained a firm footing in Zacatecas and Durango. During the years from 1611 to 1623 they founded establishments at San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Leon, Guadalajara, and Celaya, while their introduction into Puebla and Yucatan was delayed till about 1630, and into Oajaca till 1702. Santos, Chronologia, ii. 446-91. On the same and following pages are also some details about the establishment of hospitals in other places.