Spaniards had a firm faith in the curative powers of special foods: wine, cane brandy, sugar, sweet biscuits and other sweets, fresh meat, and most especially, chicken (Leturiondo, [1707]). When, in 1601, Governor Mendez Canzo and the treasury officials took testimony from two physicians, Juan de LeConte and Gaspar Nieto, about Father Baltasar Lopez's state of health, they declared that it would improve only if he ate chicken. With the price of a hen standing at 8 to 10 reales, this was an expensive prescription, but the royal officials filled it, increasing Lopez's ration from 3 reales a day to 9 or 10. [Note: As late as 1790, a hen still cost 6 reales.] To avoid this sort of emergency, Father Gomez de Palma requested a standing authorization from the Crown to buy special foods for ailing missionaries, because, as everyone knew, "during illness an ordinary diet will not do" (Gomez de Palma, [1637?]. (Bushnell SS)