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Show 191 doctor, arrived in New Spain in 1557. It was natural that he should first go to the flourishing city of Puebla de los Angeles, since among the first settlers and distinguished members of the Municipal Council were the Elexalde with whom he was related on his mother's side. But above all, the growing population lacked the services of a trained doctor and Farfan requested authorization from the Council to practice his profession. Unfortunately, the governmental decision is not known, and Farfan's stay in Puebla de los Angeles must have been a very short one. Ten years later Farfan who, on his arrival in New Spain, had his first degree in medicine, took an additional degree at the University of Mexico, and two years later entered the Augustinina order where he changed his name of Pedro Garcia for that of Agustin. His medical knowledge and the success of his book Tractado Brebe de Chirurgia y del Conocimiento y Cura del Algunas Enfer-medades,( Brief Treatise on Surgery and the Diagnosis and Cure of some Illnesses) soon made him famous. He made maximum use of the medical resources of his time and those of surrounding nature. His greatest merit was in knowing how to adapt the Indian remedies to the European medicine of his era, and his daily observations, his experiments and his book caused him to be considered as the first genuinely Mexican medical man, who joined all of the immense Western medical tradition with the elements found in New Spain, thus creating a true compendium of popular medicine in which the ancient Indian tradition and the experimental knowledge of American plants brought to the Indian villages and to the haciendas important assistance, using the natural resources provided by the particular geographic environment. Solien de Gonzalez, Nancie L., "Medical Beliefs of the Urban Folk in Guatemala," America Indigena, XXV (July, 1965), pp. 321-328. English summary: A study made about the humble class of the city of Guatemala composed in the majority of persons from rural areas taken to the city while still very young, has demonstrated that urban life has produced a re-interpretation and combination of old popular beliefs with modern scientific concepts in the field of medicine. The diversity of the place of origin of these people has produced immediate diversification of popular medical resources and the cures utilized in each zone of the country depending on its proximity. The ideas circulate freely amongst the people in great numbers, and the totality of facts and beliefs is constantly increasing. New medicines and practices are easily accepted, although in the city they are abandoned as soon as they are judged inefficient. In order for them to be accepted, however, the support of a specialist, who could be either a doctor or a curandero (witchdoctor), without the former having to necessarily be recognized |