Next year it will be the fifth Centenary of Gomez Pereira’s birth This physician and philosopher was born in Spain in 1500 studied at Salamanca University and practiced in his home town of Medina del Campo

He was Physician to the Spanish Royal Court Pereira wrote two books: Antoniana Margarita (1554) a philosophical work in which the scientific method is described for the very first time It was also the first in establishing animals are irrational beings

Nova Veraque Verae (1558) A Treaty of Fevers is the first antigalenic book that opens the Renaissance of Medicine The second and last edition of these books was in 1749

Gomez Pereira published his work around 80 years before Descartes Everybody knows Descartes nobody knows Gomez Pereira

We don’t know if his family came from Galicia in Spain or from Portugal Little is known of him He was de son of Antonio Pereira and Margarita de Medina His grandfather was Gomez Garcia Pereira His first name was inherited from his grandfather Gomez was the second of five children: Francisco died in 1515; Juan was married to Maria de Heban they had no children; Ana married Luis Alvarez de Escobar parents of Antonio de Escobar who studied law at the University of Salamanca Gomez Pereira married Isabel Rodriguez they had no children There was also an Antonio Pereira living in Cuzco in 1593

I have found some references about Abraham Isaac Pereira from Villaflore in Portugal from Manuel Pereira descendent of Ruy Pereira O Bravo nephew of Nun Álvarez Pereira I was given a page of a book in which the Family crest is in the Jewish Encyclopedia

I read Victor Perera’s book The Cross and the Pear Tree He said Perera Pereyra Pereira Pereire and Pereire all mean an orchard of pears or the person who cultivates them

Best regards and good wishes for Passover

Jaime G Gomez