Abordagens Interdisciplinares
aos Colóquios dos simples e drogas da Índia
de Garcia de Orta
Goa, 1563 — Lisboa, 2013
East Indies, West Indies:
Garcia de Orta and the Spanish treatises on exotic materia medica
JOSE PA RDO- TO MÁ S
In 1565, Nicolas Monardes published in Seville the first part of his Historia
medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales. Seven years later,
in Madrid, Juan Fragoso published his Discurso de las cosas aromáticas que se traen
de la India Oriental. A consideration of the weight to Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios in
both works is needed for a proper understanding about the printed production of
exotic materia medica treatises in Castile, as well as the edition of Tractado de las
drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, published in Spanish by the Portuguese
physician and surgeon Cristóvão da Costa in 1578. The paper will explore influences and controversial points between these works.
J OSÉ P A RD O T O MÁS is researcher at the Department of History of Science in the Institute Mila
I Fontanas (CSIC, Barcelona, Spain). He has published on the social and cultural history of medicine, natural history, and scientific publishing in the early modern period. He is the author of,
among others, Ciencia y censura (Madrid, 1991); El Tesoro natural de America (Madrid, 2002); and
El médico en la palestra. Diego Mateo Zapata (1664-1745) y la ciencia moderna en España (Salamanca, 2004); Un lugar para la ciencia. Espacios de práctica científica en la sociedad hispana del
siglo XVI, La Orotava, Tenerife, 2006. He is also the author of numerous articles on the history of
science and medicine in Spanish and international books and journals.