Paper presented at the NWSA-Conference Milwaukee-Wisconsin (June 2004)

"OLIVA SABUCO a medieval philosopher" By Maria Colomer Vintro

Professors, students, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming. Let me start by sharing the excitement of being here today before an audience concerned about and dedicated to women's issues. Oliva Sabuco would have been thrilled. Four hundred and seventeen years ago, she struggled to be heard and to demonstrate that women had the same rights and were endowed with the same intelligence than men; her armor in this contest was the publication of a medical/ philosophical work. As you can imagine in order to strive in this endeavor she also had to cross many borders and hurdle many barriers.

I am aware of the urgency to discuss the many problems that women have to confront today, yet it is refreshing to learn that in history, other women had to struggle very hard against rigid rules and that they somehow succeeded in their endeavors. For many of you, I am sure this is the first time you hear about Oliva Sabuco. Well, she published in 1587 in Madrid- Spain a comprehensive book titled: "NEW PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN NATURE, neither known to nor recognized by the great ancient philosophers; which will improve human life and health"⁽¹⁾* (NP)⁽²⁾*. In it, she discusses, medical, philosophical, moral, cosmological and even political and educational matters. Her book pertains to the first shipment brought to the Library of Medicine in Bethesda MD(NIH)

when it was founded more than 200 years ago. The book was written in ancient Castilian and Latin and there was no English translation. Dr. ME Waithe and I have decided to take on the challenge. It took long to do it (almost 800 folios), but it has been rewarding,

Oliva Sabuco was a philosopher who questioned the Spanish medical and philosophical status quo in the XVI century proposing a broader vision of human nature. She objected to medical diagnosis and treatment rationale (the modern subject of Bioethics) founded -she said- in erroneous interpretation of philosophical precepts. But, it begs the question; how was she able to discuss and publish about so delicate issues during the Spanish Inquisition times? Oliva was a feminist and -ever resourceful - she dedicated her book to the King of Spain Phillip the II ⁽³⁾ saying":

- This book is as unique and new as its author. It deals with the knowledge of oneself, and presents a doctrine that enable humans to know and understand themselves and their nature, and to learn about the natural causes by which live or die or become ill . . . -" She continues saying, " . . . -This book was just as lacking in the world as many others are superfluous. Galen, Plato and Hippocrates were in need of this entire book for their treatises about human nature, and so was Aristotle in his treatises about the soul and about life and death . . . This was the philosophy needed, and the best , and the most fruitful to man, . . . -" This Letter of Dedication has been praised by Style and Language specialists*⁽⁴⁾ because of her rich form; yet it is also an example of feminine persuasion; and a proof of her authorship.

Time constraints do not allow me to take over all the subjects involved in Sabuco's work. Today I would like, if you allow me, just to concentrate on the first treatise of NP, and outline the following:

I.- Oliva Sabuco's life, circumstance, and the authorship problem,

II.- her medical/philosophical thesis, and

III.- some of the most important philosophical connotations that could be inferred from this work.

I will be short.

I - OLIVA SABUCO

- Oliva was born in 1562 in Alcaraz -Spain*⁽⁵⁾, then an important enclave for the Spanish Empire forces that were traveling all around the world. Her father and older brother were pharmacists and her godfather was a physician. There are no records of her studies, yet in those days, females were not recognized as regular students, they just sat at the class. There is also a possibility that she got her education at home or maybe in one of the eight convents in the Alcaráz of her times. Because the professionals in her family, she surely would have found books at home related to Medicine and Pharmacology and listened to the physicians discussing their prescriptions with the pharmacist.

She got married in 1580 and published her work seven years later in 1587. Her accomplishment was not easy. She had to confront many borders and barriers.

II- BORDERS AND BARRIERS.

Oliva believed in herself as much as in the importance of her work. Let us go back to the letter of Dedication to the King because in it she reveals her strong personality and goals. She wrote

":... And may your Majesty receive this pledge from a woman, for I think it is of higher quality than any other by men, by vassals vowed to your Majesty. And, even if your Cesarean and Catholic Majesty has had many books dedicated to him from men, only few and rare were from women, and none about this subject matter . . . -." (Bold is mine) Oliva was published and became famous, but success does not seem to perdure for women; for Oliva, it lasted for almost four hundred years; during that time, her talent as a female was questioned by many but she was also praised. It sounds incredible that just recently, in the Twentieth Century, her authorship was assailed. The borders and barriers that she had to overcome in the past, surged again. In 1903 Marco Hidalgo a Registrar of Alcaraz who had published a praising biography of Oliva Sabuco in 1900, published an article titled "Oliva no fué Escritora"- (Oliva was not a writer). There, Marco Hidalgo questions her authorship based on his findings of a Will of her father Miguel Sabuco, dated Feb.1588 (one year after the publication of the book -1587), where he claims: -...I composed a book entitled New Philosophy . . . in which . . . I put as author the mentioned Luisa de Oliva my daughter, only to give her the name and the honor . . . and order my daughter Luisa de Oliva not to interfere in the said privilege, if she wants to avoid my curse . . . -"

It is difficult to imagine that at that time in history, a father would have waited until his daughter had already gone through all the Royal and Inquisition examinations and tests, found a publisher and sold the first edition, to claim the authorship. The opposite seems the logical paternal procedure.

In the Will Miguel did not present any hard evidence (privilege) for his claim, just his own word. Marco Hidalgo admitted in his article that some evidence had to be found to give him credit but he could find none for*⁽⁶⁾. The privilege and all papers were in Oliva's name; Oliva had even asked for a public discussion of her thesis. How could she have misled the High authorities and the King? It is important to remember that in those days, women risked being hanged or burnt in the squares for talking their minds, even more discussing about human nature. How then a father will expose her daughter to those risks and wait until things were clear, to claim the authorship of the book?

It is also quite disturbing that Marco Hidalgo's argument was used by a well known Spanish cataloguer⁽⁷⁾* to change the authorship of NP from Oliva Sabuco to her father Miguel Sabuco As a consequence the National Spanish Library added Miguel's name to the book and a few years later removed Oliva's . Her detractors⁽⁸⁾ * presented only subjective evidence mainly related to the impossibility for a woman to write about such profound subjects at that time. So, we decided to travel to Spain, to study the evidence used for the change of authorship.

The results of our research were published in the "Boletin" of the Dept. of Bibliographic Studies of the National Library of Mexico and in the "Classifying Cataloging Quarterly" magazine, here in the U.S.A. Our opinion, based on the conclusions, is that because the burden of proof is on their side, there is NOT enough evidence for the change of authorship from Oliva to her father Miguel Sabuco. We do hope to be heard!

Now, let me summarize the reason for her fame, her medical/philosophical thesis.

III - Medical/Philosophical Thesis

Oliva Sabuco work is as important to Medicine as it is to Philosophy; in fact, her medical theories were used in the XVII- XVII century in England as the base of our modern Psycho Somatic Medicine⁽⁹⁾*. Unfortunately her name was never mentioned by those scientists.

In the first treatise of NP, "The colloquy about self-knowledge" Oliva Sabuco aims to define the intrinsic nature of human nature in a scientific and spiritual form. She claims that the problems with the Medicine of her time derived from erroneous philosophical interpretations, e.g., human nature not being considered as a whole.

She questioned principles and methodology in Medicine, as is done today in the field of Bioethics.

She proposes that in order to understand human nature, humans needed to follow the Greek motto, written in gold at Delphos "Gnoti- Seauton" or Know Yourself, and apply to themselves. She claims that ancient philosophers provided precepts but not doctrine on how to understand and apply them and that was the reason for flawed interpretations. Oliva Sabuco was not an academic, in fact she argues that in order to understand human nature, all that is needed is common sense.

She presents her work in a Pastoral form. In the first treatise three shepherds converse about the reasons why humans become ill and die prematurely. They conclude that the main reason lies on humans' mind where emotions or passions produce brain functional disorders which later on affect the body. Oliva, here, establishes her thesis, the connections between the workings of the mind and the health of the body.

Oliva Sabuco was influenced by holistic Oriental* ⁽¹⁰⁾philosophies as Taoism and Tibetan Medicine, and also by the Naturalist⁽¹¹⁾*. She presents hundreds of examples from Pliny the Elder,. But in her theories we also find Platonic concepts related to Holism as well as to Harmony. (Timeaus and the Charmides*⁽¹²⁾) There are also parallels to Aristotle concepts of Being and Essence as well as the concept of the Mean *⁽¹³⁾ that becomes intrinsic to her theory. Yet there are also in Sabuco, strong Stoic religious influences. She proposes frugality and communication with God,. The Creator.

Oliva compares humans to an upside down tree where fundamental spiritual nutrients, in the form of emotions or passions, enter through the brain. She calls the Brain system the main system or "the prince" because from there (through the nervous system) she says the nutrients are distributed to the branches or the rest of the body. She also considers the importance of the Digestive System, where the food is processed and sent up to the brain and the rest of the body through the Endocrine system. Oliva, tries to describe her psychological and physiological theories in scientific detail even that in her time microscopes were not available.

For Sabuco the harmony between the Brain and Digestive systems is the reason for health and their disharmony for disease. At this psychological/philosophical level, her thesis emphasizes the role of "Emotions" or passions which become the fundamental piece of her theory. She divides emotions in negative and positive For Sabuco, "negative emotions" are responsible for most of humans' diseases and even violent deaths. She claims that if humans want to be healthy and live longer, they should start by knowing themselves, being able to recognize and control the bad emotions as are, i.e., anger and grief, rage, vengeance, fear, dread, sadness⁽¹⁴⁾. *etc., before they affect their minds and bodies. At the physical level, Sabuco describes how the Pia Mater disposes of these bad emotions through a large discharge of its fluids, or what is described as a "decrement⁽¹⁵⁾." Those fluids, which she calls bad "Chilo"⁽¹⁶⁾* travel down to the body (succo nervoso) affecting organs and functions, producing illnesses and even violent death. She recommends psychological therapies to tend off bad emotions as well as to maintain healthy habits and the use of natural medicines. Oliva however, introduces a religious aspect to her theory saying that immoral actions and mortal sins also produce the same negative effects in the soul, the mind and the body than do bad emotions. She recommends following moral religious rules in order to control them.

Oliva also argues that good "positive emotions" such as happiness, merriment and content, and hope for the good or optimism provide good health, and prolong life in humans by setting a positive mind frame that is reflected in the body health. She calls positive emotions, the columns that support humans life. She explains the physical changes caused by those positive emotions, which produce an "increment"⁽¹⁷⁾of the Pia Mater, as the right amount of good Chilo is discharged to the body, which are beneficial to the mind itself and to the body bringing health and longer life to the individual. To this positive sphere Oliva adds a religious perspective. She recommends the practice of "virtues" that she calls "Ornaments of the Soul" as are temperance, fortitude, justice and prudence, as well as gratitude, love and magnanimity which she says produce in the soul, the mind and body the same effects as do positive emotions.

I do hope that I have managed to at least outline the gist of her theory for I am unable to discuss here the whole of it. Let us now examine some of the philosophical connotations that could be inferred from it

IV - Philosophical connotations

1. - Sabuco's expands her medical theory to a divine spiritual religious dimension. She describes the importance of morals and ethics as well as religious rules for salvation. Yet, it is important to notice that she does not necessarily follow the prevalent traditional Christian forms of the Spain of the XVI century. Oliva does not confine her theory to a religious plane; in her work she never mentions the figure of Christ, the Church nor Sacraments. Neither Purgatory nor the Commandments are ever brought to mentioning, let alone discussion. In my opinion, Oliva Sabuco's thesis involves two important theories: 1) a medical scientific theory related to the mind and body connections through a holistic psychological/physiological vision that is the one that has prevailed to our times, and 2) a moral religious theory where the soul acts over the mind and the body in order to control what she calls "The Beast"" or negative emotions and achieve salvation. Oliva unites these two theories accomplishing two goals, the salvation of the body and that of the soul.

2. - Sabuco expands on the issue of Mind and Body presenting at her times, a different perspective to this problem where the relations and connections between the mind and the body become systematic and interdependent. Oliva Sabuco is a Dualist; she identifies a divine and a physical substance in humans. Oliva Sabuco's work is not as outstanding as Descartes, but on the impact of emotions and passions over the body health, she is ahead of Descartes. He was reluctant to discuss this issue and only did it at the end of his life, half century after Sabuco's publication *⁽¹⁸⁾ Decartes is deservedly called the first Interactionalist Dualist. So, what could Oliva Sabuco be called? I will call her a pioneer of Interactionalism. Yet, I do recognize that this question deserves more studies as do other philosophical connotations to this work. My time is up; let me just conclude.

CONCLUSION.

From what I have summarized today, we could say that Oliva Sabuco was a remarkable female figure of the 16^th century who crossed borders and hurdled barriers in order to prove the parity of the sexes. Yet, her case is also a good remainder of the fragile, uncertain situation women had, have, and continue to confront. At the same time, we do have to remember that spite of her problem, Oliva can be considered a pioneer: A) in psychosomatic Medicine because of her advanced medical thesis, B) in Bioethics, because she questioned medical methods at their core, and

C) in Interactionalism Dualism, because she addressed a system of interrelations and dependencies between the soul, mind and body which provide with a different innovative perspective for the Mind Body Problem in the XVI century.

And last but not least, it is important to recognize that Oliva by expanding the dimension of the works of the soul to the body's health ( not only the opposite), closes the circle of relations between the soul/mind and body and presents a broader moral practical spiritual vision.

I do hope that my short exposition has excited your interest in Oliva Sabuco. More studies are needed in order to define the scope and dimension of her work. I do believe however that we could find positive Intersections through her work, personality and experience. Thanks

More information is available in our Internet page:

1. Edition 1587 published in Madrid by J . Madrigal

2. (NP) will be used to identify Oliva Sabuco's Book.

3. Letter of Dedication to the King Phillip II in the Preface to the Book NP , fol. A4

4. Damaris Torres (Rutgers University)"Una humilde sierva osa hablar" Revista Univ.Catolica de Chile -Casilia ,Chile - Nov1998.

Pascual Buxó (Univ. Mexico D.F-bibliographic studies) Sabiduria Femenina y Condena Social. Un caso de la Espana del siglo XVI/ Ed Monika Bosse Reichenberg Kasel 1999

5. Marco Hidalgo- Biografia de Dona Oliva- Madrid 1900

6. Marco Hidalgo- Dona Oliva no fué escritora" - Archivos Bibliotecas y Museus -Madrid 1903

7. A.Palau Dulcet -Manual del Librero Hispano Americano T.XVIII 1987

8. A.Chinchilla- "Anales históricos de la Medicina en general y bibliográfico de la espanola" T.1 -Valencia 1841 , page 303-312

Antonio Nicolás - Biblioteca Hispana Nova- Roma 1672 - Madrid 1788. T.II

Al Basit- Monografico a Miguel Sabuco - 1987- Albacete -Spain .

9. The concept of the primacy of the brain and the nervous system was used by Francis Glisson , Thomas Willis, Wharton and others in England. Alan Guy talks about this in his article in AL-BASIT magazine , # 22 (Albacete Spain) quoting M. Martinez

10. Heisook Kim"Yin and Yang"- World Congress of Philosophy -Boston 1998

Kristofer Schiffer,"Le corps Taoiste"-Paris Fayrad 1982

Baker, Ian ,"The Tibetan Art of Healing" p.58