A FORGOTTEN WORTHY, DR. DIEGO ALVAREZ CHANCA, OF SEVILLE, SPAIN.

Abstract

With Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage of discovery to America, in the year 1493, there came Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca, a distinguished practitioner of much learning and professional skill, who held the position of physician-in-ordinary to the King and Queen of Castile and Aragon, and had attended their first-born child, Princess Isabella (who afterward became Queen of Portugal) during a serious illness the year before. He was a native of the city of Seville, and had been especially appointed by the Spanish monarch to accompany that expedition, not only on account of its great political and commercial importance, but also because among the 1,500 persons who came over from Europe to America in that fleet were several distinguished personages and a large number of aristocratic young gentlemen, restless and daring warriors who had done excellent service in the war just ended against the Moors. As an able practitioner, he