Siła roślin w twórczości Miguela de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra has been associated with medicine since his very birth in Alcalá de Henares, in a house adjacent to the hospital where his father worked. From him, the future writer inherited an extensive library, in which a prominent place was occupied by the work De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, translated and completed by Andrés Laguna, a prominent physician and botanist, the initiator of the establishment of the first botanical garden in Spain. Thus, from his youth, the author of Don Quixote had the opportunity to learn in detail about the healing effects of plants. It was not only his background that influenced Cervantes’ interest in herbalism in the broadest sense, for his works present a full cross-section of the society of the time, which had no shortage of folk “miracle workers” practicing magic with the help of herbs. Fearing the Inquisition – particularly interested in combating practices that were considered to be deviant from the prevailing faith – the author of Don Quixote avoided naming the plants that his characters used in various ointments and decoctions in his works, lest it be assumed that he himself possessed some “secret”, i.e. forbidden, knowledge. However, the mere description of their “bizarre” behavior is enough for specialists to determine the ingredients of the stimulants, in which hallucinogens such as black loosestrife (Hyoscyamus niger), medicinal verbena (Verbena officinalis) and poppy (Papaver somniferum) predominated. This fact sheds new light on many of the heroes of Cervantes’ works, who, considered madmen or witches in their time, were in fact drug addicts. It is noteworthy that magic in the popular imagination of Cervantes’ time, was associated with a socially excluded group of descendants of converted Jews and Moors, from such families also came mostly doctors, like the writer’s father. This work focuses on presenting the nontherapeutic use of plants in selected works by Spain’s most prominent writer.