ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the works produced in the Iberian Peninsula during that 15-year period in order to demonstrate not only the importance and influence of the work of Garcia de Orta, but also the direct or indirect link between the Crown and publishing ventures during those years and the consequent silence that was imposed from 1580 on. An intellectual product like this immediately attracted the attention of physicians, surgeons and apothecaries throughout the Peninsula, not only of those like Fragoso and Acosta who were interested specifically in the products of the East Indies, but also of other writers of treatises who were in principle interested in American medicines. It may seem surprising to include a work explicitly devoted to the materia medica of the West Indies to demonstrate the impact of the work of Garcia da Orta.
