The Natural & Moral History of the Indies,

José de Acosta (c.1540-1600) was a sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist in Latin America. His deductions regarding the ill effects of crossing over the Andes in 1570 related to the atmosphere being too thin for human needs led to the modern understanding of a variety of altitude sickness, now referred to as Acosta's disease.

Acosta is best known as the writer of Historia natural y moral de las Indias (this work). It was one of the first detailed and realistic descriptions of the New World. In a form more concise than that employed by his predecessors, Francisco Lopez de Gómara and Oviedo, he treated the natural and philosophic history of the New World from a broader point of view. In it, more than a century before other Europeans learned of the Bering Strait, Acosta hypothesized that Latin America's indigenous peoples had migrated from Asia. The Historia also described Inca and Aztec customs and history, as well as other information such as winds and tides, lakes, rivers, plants, animals, and mineral resources in the New World.

First edition of this translation, Hakluyt Society First Series, LX and LXI; 2 volumes, 8vos (22.5 x 15 cm); ex libris Inner Temple Library with bookplates and stamps, withdrawn stamp to titles, occasional marginal waterstaining; original publisher's gilt blue cloth, boards slightly dampstained and mottled, spines a little darkened, small closed tear to spine of vol. 2, a good set; [8], xlv, [2], 295; [8], xiii, (295)-551pp.