ABSTRACT
This chapter explores early modern medical cultures through the letters of individuals, analyzing aspects linked to health that are poised at the intersection of the three areas discussed by David Gentilcore in the context of early modern Naples: family, religion, and 'expertise'. Letters help us assess medical phenomena related to distance, scale, and novelty. Letters are quite different from other documents considered in chapters dedicated to New Spain in this book. Ruiz wondered, 'If they made their best efforts, or if they gave me the wrong cure at the start of the illness'. It analysis of private correspondence helps elucidate the medical strategies that were devised in American lands. The variety of strategies Spanish settlers used for illness prevention and cure cannot be separated from the complex ethnic and cultural reality of New Spain, which included indigenous populations, Africans, mestizos, and mulattoes.
