“In the sixteenth century, the taste of our nation leaned in favour of scholastic theology, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the civil law of the Romans; so that at the period of founding the university of Saint Mark, as well as for some time after, there were established for teaching each of the above branches of learning a competent number of well-endowed professorships; and, moreover, colleges were erected not only in Lima, but in all the principal cities within the viceroyalty of Peru, for teaching the same. “For medicine two chairs were appointed or intended,—one (de prima) on the theory of medicine, and the other (de visperas) on pathology; but, no salaries being fixed, these fell to the ground. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that when, in the year 1637, they deliberated upon restoring the medical professorships, it was stated by Dr. Huerta, that in arts, laws, and theology, there had flourished a large number of doctors, enumerating about one hundred in Lima that very year, (seventy years from the foundation of the university,) but that in this lapse of time only three or four physicians were known among them, who, having studied in other parts, had incorporated themselves with the university.” It was at the same time urged by Dr. Huerta (who was professor of the Quichua language) that the appointment of medical professors was quite useless, “as it was notorious that the Indians performed better cures than the physicians, recovering those whom the doctors had given up for lost; and, moreover, that many who were for some time in hospitals had from their own experience found out how to cure very successfully, without being professed doctors, like Martin Sanches and Juan Ximenes.” Let no one suppose, from the date of the fact here stated, that the age of empiricism is passed away; for now, in the nineteenth century, we have hospital-dressers who take upon themselves the character of instructed practitioners, and are employed as such; while the famous curandera, or doctress, La Señora Dorotea, wants not among the opulent and best-informed persons of Lima warm defenders of her skill and superiority over the doctors of the university.