he wrote La ciencia blancardina, which he referred to as the second part of Nuevo Luciano, as an answer to the criticism of a Mercedarian priest from Quito. Because of his works, by 1783 he was labeled as "restive and subversive." To get rid of him, the authorities named him head physician for the scientific expedition of Francisco de Requena to the Pará and Marañon rivers to set the limits of the Audiencia. Espejo tried to decline the appointment, and after that failed, he tried unsuccessfully to flee. His arrest order details one of the few remaining physical descriptions of him. Captured, he was sent back as a "criminal of serious offense," but he was not prosecuted and suffered no significant consequences. Short exile In 1785, he was asked by the cabildo (town council) to write about smallpox, the worst medical problem the Audiencia faced. Espejo used the opportunity to write his most complete and best-written work, Reflexiones acerca de un método para preservar a los pueblos de las viruelas (Reflections about a method to preserve the people from smallpox), denouncing the way the Audiencia handled sanitation. This work is a valuable historical source as a description of the hygienic and sanitary conditions of colonial America. Reflexiones was sent to Madrid, where it was added as an appendix to the second edition of the medical treatise Disertación médica (1786) by Francisco Gil, a member of the Real Academia Médica de España. Instead of recognition, Espejo acquired enemies because his work criticized the physicians and priests in charge of public health in the Royal Audiencia for their negligence, and he was forced to leave Quito. On his way to Lima, he stopped in Riobamba, where a group of priests asked him to write a reply to a report written by Ignacio Barreto, chief tax collector. The report accused the priests of Riobamba of various abuses against the Indians in order to take their money. Espejo gladly accepted the task because he wanted to settle accounts with Barreto and other citizens of Riobamba, among them José Miguel Vallejo, who had turned him in to the authorities when he tried to flee Requena's expedition to the Marañón river. He wrote Defensa de los curas de Riobamba (Defense of the clergy of Riobamba), a detailed study of the way of life of the Indians from Riobamba and a powerful attack on Barreto's report. In