ABSTRACT
The extraordinary nineteenth-century boom in lexicographic works dealing with medicine that took place in France (and to a lesser extent Germany) rapidly spread to other European countries by means of translation. Spanish publishers brought out medical dictionaries translated from French and German alongside original works by Spanish medical practitioners. Medical works included a wide range of information tailored for readers in the source culture. This caused all sorts of problems for translators, who had to choose between staying true to the original content and adapting it for its new Spanish-speaking audience. In some instances, this meant adapting the text to the ideology and morals of nineteenth-century Spain. Analysing these works sheds light on how medical knowledge entered Spain at that time and on the role of translation in disseminating medical research. Such analysis is supported by the Tesoro Lexicográfico Médico [Spanish Medical Lexicographic Thesaurus, TeLeMe] project, a corpus of nineteenth-century Spanish medical dictionaries including medical dictionaries and encyclopaedias published in Spanish and translated from other languages, mainly French and German. This chapter explores the context in which most of those works saw the light of day and describes this new research tool.
