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Oliva Sabuco (1562-?) dedicated her work to exploring the relationship between emotional and physical health. In 1587 she published a comprehensive book titled New Philosophy of Human Nature not Known and not Reached by the Ancient Philosophers that Improves Human Life and Health. In it, Sabuco scholarly describes how emotions may impair health and cause premature death. She urges physicians to treat in unison the whole person: body, mind and soul. Sabuco's thesis confronted some skepticism from the medical establishment, and from a community ready to stigmatize a woman as unfit to tackle matters dealing with taboo physiological topics.
Recognition of her work grew nevertheless steadily in Spain from the first (1587) throughout the seventh (eight with the one of 1734) editions. Sabuco's Nueva Filosofia was known in France at the beginning of 17C, but it was in England where it was
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recognized as seminal work, and, soon after, "silently" quoted (plagiarized?).
It seems that the impact that the eventual Inquisition's expurgations had upon the successive editions of New Philosophy was not severe; its key-thoughts have ostensibly flown uncoerced -if at times enigmatic- along the centuries. Any advised analysis of Sabuco's work should consider the cunning that had to be summoned when readying such a book for the post-publication expunctions by the Inquisition.
The early 19C acquisition of at least three exemplars (1587 (first), 1622 and 1728 editions) of New Philosophy by the institution that was to develop into the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library, proves that her work had been known and esteemed since long in the Old World. It is fitting here to remind the readers that many aspects of Sabuco's work are consistent with modern thinking in Medicine and Phlosophy.
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