New Spain was the site not only of one of the largest-scale missionary enterprises in Christian history, but also of a prolonged encounter among diverse medical traditions of Mesoamerican, African, and European origin in which male missionaries were central. Given the paucity of licensed physicians in the colony, religious involvement in medical practice remained significant throughout the colonial period. This paper considers the confluence of religion and medicine in the encounters that friars and inquisitors had with women, arguing that in these encounters, missionaries and inquisitors participated in the translation, circulation, and creation of medical knowledge and positioned themselves as both theological and medical authorities, as proponents and translators of Galenic medical theory, and as “confessor-physicians” rather than “confessor-judges.” Women thus played a crucial interlocutory role in the articulation of a colonial religio-medical regime whose primary framers were not physicians, but clergymen.

新西班牙不仅是基督教历史上规模最大的传教企业之一，也是中美洲、非洲和欧洲起源的不同医学传统长期相遇的地点，其中男性传教士是核心。鉴于殖民地缺乏执业医师，在整个殖民时期，宗教对医疗实践的参与仍然很重要。本文考虑了宗教与医学在修道士和审判官与女性的相遇中的融合，认为在这些相遇中，传教士和审判官参与了医学知识的翻译、传播和创造，并将自己定位为神学和医学权威。作为盖伦医学理论的倡导者和翻译者，并且作为“忏悔者-医生”而不是“忏悔者-法官”。因此，妇女在殖民宗教医学制度的表达中发挥了关键的中间作用，该制度的主要制定者不是医生，而是神职人员。