English version here:
Joséu Celestino Mutis (April 6, 1732 to September 11, 1808) was a Spanish priest, physician, botanist, and mathematician. After his arrival in Santa Fe de Bogotá as physician of the viceroy of Nueva Granada (a viceroyalty of Spain in the Americas that included what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, and Guyana), he became interested in scientific research in multiple areas, especially in the flora of Nueva Granada, as well as its therapeutic applications.
After appointment of the new viceroy-archbishop of Nueva Granada, he directed the Botanical Expedition of Nueva Granada, whose mission was to investigate the flora, fauna, and mineral resources of said viceroyalty. As a result of it and previous work, he came to produce a large herbarium of more than 24,000 specimens, part of which was deposited in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. He was especially interested in the quina, or cinchona bark (trees of the genus Cinchona native to South America), with therapeutic action against malaria and antipyretic. Mutis found the cinchonatree in the area of present-day Colombia and published different articles on its different botanical, agricultural, commercial, and medical aspects, describing the distinct species and their different therapeutic values, and achieving its cultivation for the first time.
He collaborated with Linnaeus and was elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. All of his work on the quina was collected in his posthumous books "El Arcano de la Quina" and "Historia de los árboles de la quina". Likewise, he promoted the modernization of university education and scientific research in Nueva Granada in multiple areas. He inaugurated there the Chair of Mathematics and Physics of the Colegio del Rosario, disseminating and translating the works of Newton, as well as heliocentric astronomy. From that position, he promoted the building of the Bogotá Astronomical Observatory, the oldest in America, and was appointed astronomer to King Carlos III of Spain. He was entrusted with the reform of the Medical Study Plan in New Granada, where he introduced updated training at his time. He made inroads into local mining and philology.
Mutis was a devout Catholic who was ordained a priest 12 years after his arrival in New Granada.
Autor: Gonzalo Colmenarejo, PhD. IMDEA Food. SCS-España
