Francisco Vallés


Francisco Valles also known as Divino Valles Covarrubias, 4 October 1524 – Burgos, 20 September 1592) was a Spanish physician, the best example of the medical Renaissance in Spain.

Biography

He was born at Covarrubias, and studied in several European cities, which brought him into contact with Andrea Vesalius, the personal physician of King Philip II of Spain and «Médico de Cámara y Protomédico General de los Reinos y Señoríos de Castilla».
He served most of his life in Alcalá de Henares, where he taught medicine, and was the first in Alcalá to teach medicine for the body.
In addition to medicine Vallés was a great humanist and writer. His last years were spent in the apothecary's Monastery of El Escorial prepared by the distillation of natural plants. He died in Burgos, and is buried in the chapel of Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso in Alcalá de Henares. He was commemorated by the noted Spanish botanists, Ruiz and Pavón when they named a South American shrub, Vallesia in 1794.

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