Juan del Valle y Caviedes

Caviedes was born in Porcuna, Andalusia, Spain in 1645. He moved to Peru at an early age and settled in Lima, later spending some time in the mining area of Huancavelica, where life was hard even for a Spaniard at the top of the social pyramid. However, in his satire of doctors and medicine Caviedes was following a long-standing satirical Western tradition.

As a writer Caviedes shares many characteristics with several of the writers of Spanish Golden Age, such as Francisco de Quevedo and Luis de Góngora, partially because of his satirical, biting, vulgar, popular, and picaresque wit. But behind this criticism is a social and moral attack on the abuses, injustices, and double standards of the Colonial period. He is also the author of serious love and religious poetry. When Caviedes moved to Lima the targets of his satire included not only doctors, but also Lima aristocrats and the Viceregal court. Following satirical tradition, he attacked many professions, among them lawyers, tailors, and street women, with an emphasis on the grotesque, the scatological, the ugly, and the immoral. With some exceptions, the scandalous aspects of his work made publication difficult during his lifetime, but his works circulated in handwritten chapbooks and were collected in various manuscripts. There are several modern editions of his complete works.

• From: Diente del Parnaso/ Tooth of Parnassus (1689), Translated by Jack Child Take care that in your eagerness if you treat doctors this way you'll force the priests and sacristans to go on all fours. Because neither sunstroke nor excess or the worst parents-in-law fruit or snow without liquor, bullet, stockade or song kill in one year as many as the best doctor.