MUTIS Y BOSSIO, JOSé CELESTINO BRUNO

(b. Cadiz, Spain, 6 April 1732; d. Santa Fe de Bogotá, Nueva Granada [now Bogotá, colombia], 11 September 1808)

botany, astronomy

Mutis received a degree in medicine at Seville in 1755, then continued his education at Madrid in 1757-1760 under the direction of Miguel Barnades the elder (d. 1771), studying at the botanic garden of Migas Calientes. In 1760, as a physician to the Marquis de la Vega, vicerory of Nueva Granada, he went to America. There he successfully opposed smallpox inoculation; helped found the Sociedad de Amigos del País (1802); and initiated the study of the exact sciences. In 1762 he introduced the teaching of mathematics in the modern sense; after 1774 he expounded the doctrine of Copernicus; and in 1803 he founded the astronomical observatory at Bogotá.

Mutis was primarily interested in botany. He traveled throughout the viceroyalty, communicating his discoveries to Madrid and corresponding with Linnaeus for several years. In 1783 he was appointed director of a botanical expedition, with Eloy valenzuela, Diego García, and Salvador Rizo as assistants. He met Humboldt and Bonpland in 1801 and remained friends with them.

Mutis’ writings included studies of Bogotá tea (Symplocos mitonia), (Aristolochia anuicida), Peruvian ipecac (Psychotria emetica Mutis), and some species of cinchona; he wrote such monographs on the latter plant as El arcano de la quina(1793). His major contribution was La Flora de la real expedición botánica del Nuevo Reino de Granada, publication of which began only in 1954.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mutis’ major work is la flora de la real expedición botánica del Nuevo Reino de Granada, 51 vols. (Madrid, 1954-). For the rest of his writings, as well as a bibliography of works on Mutis, see the index to Índice histírico español(Barcelona).

An important biography is A . Federico Gredilla, Biografia de José Celestino Mutis con relaciñn de su Viaje yestudios practicados en el Nuevo Reino de Granada(Madrid, 1911) .

J. Vernet