Badianus Manuscript, John Hopkins Library

For the publication of the Badianus Manuscript in English by Johns Hopkins Press. One of the earliest known Aztec herbals, composed in Latin by a Mexican physician in 1552, it was translated by Dr. Emily Walcott Emmart.

The first Founders Fund Award was presented to the Amateur Gardeners Club of Baltimore to assist in the printing of an English version of The Badianus Manuscript: An Aztec Herbal of 1552. The Manuscript is the earliest treatise on Mexican medicinal plans and native Aztec herbal remedies produced in the Americas. Written in 1552, the Manuscript was sent to Spain where it travelled into obscurity until discovered in 1931 in the Vatican Library by a Smithsonian researcher, Dr. Charles U. Clark. The Badianus manuscript is an herbal, outlining the pharmacological treatment of ninety-nine different afflictions to the body. From cures for hiccups and cough to remedies for cuts and swellings, this work documents an unbroken custom of herb use among Native Americans. Written in the local Aztec language (Nahuatl) by Martinus de la Cruz who was a prominent physician at the College of Santa Cruz, it was translated by his colleague Juannes Badianus into Latin. Upon its 20th Century discovery by Dr. Clark, Dr. Emily Walcott Emmart, a Johns Hopkins University biologist spent four years translating the book into English. As published by The Johns Hopkins Press in 1940, the book contains a full-color facsimile of the entire handwritten manuscript in addition to a page-by-page translation, identification of plants and comments on their use. Dr. Emmart credited the Amateur Gardeners Club with raising contributions to produce 1,500 copies, which may be found in libraries and medical schools around the world today.