Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro de 2008 The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN
MEDICINE
Ângela Domingues
Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT) / Departamento de Ciências Humanas
[email protected]
Resumo
Os Descobrimentos e a Expansão europeia foram um fenómeno que modificou profundamente indivíduos,
nações e sociedades tanto no Novo como no Velho Mundo. Os contactos protagonizados por indivíduos e a
bagagem material que transportavam consigo introduziram na América agentes microbianos responsáveis pela
difusão de doenças que tiveram um efeito demográfico devastador junto da população ameríndia. Proponhome abordar a difusão das doenças epidémicas no Velho Mundo junto da população indígena incidindo a
minha abordagem às colónias portuguesa e hispanoamericanas; e à influência que os produtos vegetais do
Novo Mundo tiveram na terapêutica ocidental.
Key words: Atlantic Ocean; Old World diseases; New World encounters; Imperial expansion; Therapeutic
properties of plants; Traditional knowledge
1. OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH
The process of expansion on a global scale that was initiated by Spain and Portugal
in the 15th century enabled contacts and encounters - that were often transformed into
conflict and confrontation - between civilizations and cultures of different regions of the
planet. It resulted in a meeting of the East and West, and was an encounter between ancient
unknown worlds and an unveiling of new worlds. The important role that navigation
techniques and naval construction played in enabling the progress of adventurers overseas
that were still populated by mythological creatures and were rife with very real dangers is
well known. Likewise, one is aware of the importance of the role of wind systems and
ocean currents or the monsoon for the progress of ships and the discernment of coastlines.
The different forms of political, administrative, commercial, military and urban
control that were established by the Iberian kingdoms in vast regions that included not only
extensive oceanic tracts but also, in many cases, interior regions of the African, Asian and
American continents have also been studied. One has focused upon the political and
ideological discourse underlying the formation of colonial empires that, in their structure
Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro de 2008 The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ and in the construction of a specific identity, adopted their "mother countries" as their
paradigm.
Finally, one can view the Discoveries and European expansion as a phenomenon
that had a profound act on individuals, nations and societies, both in the New World as well
as in the Old World. This is plainly evident, for example, in the transferal of cultural
techniques that saw the construction of buildings and the implantation of urban centers with
European features scattered over the four corners of the earth; in the diffusion of military
technology that gave rise to the episode of the introduction of the rifle in Japan or in the
acclimatization of plant specimens such as corn, potatoes or cassava, which had a decisive
impact on nutritional habits and, in certain periods, on the very survival of the world
population 1 .
It is undeniable that European expansion enabled an accentuation of not only the
circulation of individuals, raw materials, technical instruments and materials, but also of
innovative technologies and a reciprocal awareness of cultures, attitudes and ideas that, in
many cases, was not entirely translated into understanding or exchange.
These contacts realized by individuals and the material baggage that they took with
them, also introduced, in many regions around the globe, microbial agents that were
responsible for the diffusion of diseases that had a devastating demographic impact upon
indigenous populations who had no immunity against the diseases of the Old World, such
as smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, diphtheria, bubonic plague, cholera and scarlet
fever 2 . This impact has been defined by Sheldon Watts in the following words: "On no
other continents in historic times has a combined disease and Construct phenomenon led to
the collapse of an entire indigenous population" (Watts, 1997, p. 84). After pondering upon
the theme that was proposed to me for this paper, I opted not to approach the consequences
of the Discoveries in Western medicine in its entirety. Rather, I chose to expound upon two
topics that I consider important: the diffusion of Old World epidemic diseases amongst
indigenous Amerindian populations, focusing upon the particular case of Latin America,
i.e. the Portuguese and Hispanic American colonies; and the influence that natural products
and, especially, plant species from the New World had in Western therapeutics.
Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I would like to emphasize that the process was not bi-dimensional. There is no
doubt that the new Hispanic arrivals were the prime agents responsible for the diffusion of
pathogenic germs that caused devastating diseases amongst Amerindian populations. As a
counterpart to this, they were also the ones who transmitted diseases such as syphilis
(which was called the "European disease", "Portuguese disease" or "St. Job's disease" by
Asian populations), chiggers (a Brazilian cutaneous disease caused by an insect that lays
eggs in human skin) and, as is currently the subject of a controversy being debated by
Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic historiography, yellow fever, amongst European, Asian and
African populations 3 .
On the other hand, the commercial network that was formed by Iberian ships and
caravels enabled the appropriation and diffusion of therapeutic and food products that,
without exception, had vital repercussions on different continents. Doctors and surgeons,
dispensaries and new medicines, hospitals and medical practices that were hitherto
unknown amongst the Amerindians were also transported to the New World 4 . It was a
process of exchange at a global level and not only one of appropriation and imperial
expansion by the European powers.
2. THE DISEASES: CENTERS, AGENTS OF TRANSMISSION AND PROPAGATION
FACTORS
At the very outset, I would like to make it clear that America was not a land free
from disease. Human remains found by archaeological excavations, artistic representations
and texts or pictographic codices belonging to pre-Columbian societies who had writing
systems, as well as accounts by individuals of colonial societies, such as soldiers,
administrators, missionaries or travelers, all lead to an undeniable conclusion: American
societies prior to the period of contact were affected by infections ranging from
gastrointestinal diseases, infectious diseases of the respiratory system, viruses, yellow
fever, tuberculosis, anemia, osteoporosis, caries and parasitic diseases, as well as
boussarole and venereal syphilis, which rapidly spread amongst the population of the Old
World 5 .
3 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ It is also known that some of the diseases that existed prior to the period of contact,
such as tuberculosis, attained unusual proportions amongst Amerindian populations who
were affected by the ecological devastation that resulted from the Iberian colonization, as a
result of bad nutrition and maltreatment of the indigenous population, demoralization, lack
of hygiene and medical assistance for the sick, as well as by political, social and cultural
disintegration. To these diseases were quickly added the ones brought by the Europeans,
causing a true demographic catastrophe amongst the indigenous populations, who had a
different immune system or, as has recently been propounded, a genetic homogeneity that
enabled certain viruses, such as smallpox or measles, to adapt themselves rapidly to the
immunological response of their host and thus attack individuals with the same genetic
characteristics in a much more aggressive manner 6 .
In addition, one must keep in mind that the chronology of the diffusion of diseases
in the New World is uneven according to the territory under consideration. In many regions
of Hispanic America, such as, for example, the island of Hispaniola or the sophisticated
Aztec and lncan Empires, the appearance of epidemics of European origin occurred much
earlier than in Brazil. For example, in 1518, the Taino, who were the inhabitants of
Hispaniola, were attacked by an epidemic described by a missionary as being similar to the
easily recognizable smallpox, but in a much more virulent form. In the mid 16th century,
this population had died out completely. In the same way, shortly after Hernán Cortes' visit
to Tenochtitlan, smallpox caused much death and destruction amongst the Aztecs. The
epidemic helped the conquistadores to subjugate Montezuma's Empire, which submitted to
the Spanish armies in 1521.
As for the Portuguese colony, the first epidemic diseases were seen amongst the
Tupiniquins and Tupinambás in 1550. The first smallpox epidemic, followed by an
outbreak of measles, devastated the Brazilian coastal regions only from 1562 onwards,
drastically reducing the numbers of Amerindians in colonized areas and affected groups in
regions as far apart as Bahia and São Paulo. This phenomenon has normally been explained
by the characteristics of the Amerindian occupation of the land that, in colonial LusoBrazilian territory, was demographically more rarefied and predominantly nomadic or
semi-sedentary in nature, as well as by the characteristics of the Portuguese colonial
4 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ presence that, for a long time, remained confined to the coastal regions7 . The diseases that
decimated the Amerindian populations were defined by the colonists who survived almost
unscathed, as "the secret judgment of God". Divine mercy saved the faithful, and punished
and destroyed those who opposed it, those who were savages, barbarians, cannibals,
polygamists and sodomites, i.e. those who lived without faith, laws or king. The
Amerindians, situated on an inferior level in the hierarchy of human development, had to
submit, acculturate themselves and become Christians. In this regard, Jose de Acosta stated:
"All those who are scarcely men, or only half men, must be taught how to become men, and
be instructed as if they were children”.
Finally, it is important to mention that if many of these infections originated in
Europe, the ships that called at the ports along the American coast formed a network that
transmitted diseases that came not only from the European continent but also from Asia,
and especially, from Africa. Dauril Alden and Joseph Miller in "Out of Africa: The Slave
Trade and the Transmission of Smallpox to Brazil 1560-1831" consider the smallpox
epidemics to have been leading killers and consider tropical Africa to have been "the
primary source of smallpox contagion in Brazil", particularly during the 17th and 18th
centuries, when an increase in the slave trade resulted in more frequent and intense
connections between the ports on both sides of the Atlantic 8 .
Further, one must keep in mind that many of these infections propagated themselves
more rapidly than the colonizing presence, provoking sequels amongst Amerindian groups
who, until that time, had not had any contact with Europeans. Viruses and bacteria were
spread by the indigenous people themselves by means of lines of communication and
internal commerce or, also, by wars between tribes. As a consequence empires and
kingdoms that were in the throes of crises of dynastic succession or had been
demographically debilitated by the epidemics, fell more easily into the hands of the Spanish
and Portuguese conquistadores, as was the case of the Incan Empire or the region that lies
between the basins of the Plate and Paraguay rivers 9 .
If the Amerindian tribes possessed medical knowledge that was more or less
effective in treating the diseases that they were habitually afflicted by, when they were
confronted with the diseases introduced by colonists or conquistadores they were
5 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ completely helpless 10 . Their traditional remedies were not effective, medical treatment for
patients was not, in some cases, a practice that was traditionally followed and in many
cases, there were no survivors within a family or group. Many tribes who were affected by
the epidemics tried to survive by fleeing to areas that were increasingly more remote from
the European presence. Others placed themselves in a position of notorious dependence
upon the missionaries of various religious orders, who were known to have curative and
palliative capacities, sometimes identified with magic, and who were less aggressive than
the colonists in exploiting indigenous labor 11 .
3. THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW WORLD ON THE THERAPEUTICS OF THE OLD
WORLD
It is obvious that the pre-Columbian civilizations, irrespective of the degree of
complexity of the civilizations and cultures that characterized them, had developed
therapeutic practices for the treatment and cure of many diseases that afflicted the
American population. They practiced a pre-scientific medicine, the product of an empirical
knowledge of the pharmacological application of natural products mixed with magic,
superstition and religion 12 . The power of steam baths, massages, fumes, suction, amulets
and talismans was more effective when their priests, pajés and shamans muttered magic
formula and powerful spells and manipulated and ministered plants and roots 13 . For
example, Incan medicine utilized coca to stimulate physical activity and suppress fatigue,
thirst and hunger and quinquina as a febrifuge and in the treatment of malaria. The Aztecs
used guaiacum, jalap, castor oil and sarsaparilla as hallucinogenic agents. The Guaranis of
Paraná and Uruguay medicated themselves with yerva mate for its properties as a stimulant
and stomachic powers and with paico, a kind of chenopod, against intestinal parasites.
Many of these products, such as sassafras, guaiacum and tobacco, were taken to
Europe and introduced into European medicine. "Iberians who expanded their
pharmacopoeia with native medicinal herbs did not, however, alter their theories about the
causes and cures of disease or the practice of medicine. They transplanted their medical
traditions intact from Iberia to the New World but extended them in anemic form to the
6 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ frontier, where all but the largest towns and military posts lacked doctors and
hospitals"(Weber, 1992, p. 316).
From the 16th century onwards, natural products that were used for alimentary,
industrial and therapeutic purposes and had, until then, been unknown or used sparingly
owing to their rarity and high prices in the Old World began to arrive in Europe 14 . If the
New World became one of the main suppliers, it is also important to note that, in an initial
phase, Europe's attention was focused on the Orient. The discovery of the route via the
Cape of Good Hope enabled a direct access to the sources of various spices that, from being
rare and expensive products, used in kitchens of the elite or in doctors' and surgeons'
dispensaries, now began to be consumed and appreciated by a far wider section of the
population.
Having established himself in a centre of production and commercialization of
spices, in the capital of the Portuguese Empire in the Orient and thus being able to directly
observe the medicinal remedies used in the pharmaceutical art of the time, Garcia de Orta, a
Portuguese doctor who graduated from the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and
Salamanca, wrote the work entitled Colóquios dos simples e das drogas e coisas medicinais
da Índia, published in Goa in 1563. This individualized description of the pharmaceutical
species of the Orient is, perhaps, one of the most well known and unquestionably accepted
contributions to Western medicine that resulted from the Portuguese Discoveries and the
efforts of the Portuguese Renaissance cultural elite 15 .
Garcia de Orta's work was circulated in Europe by means of a Latin version edited
by the doctor and botanist Charles de l'Escluse that was entitled Aromatum e Simplicium
Medicamentorum apud lndios Nascentium Historia (1567) and was continued and
perfected by another Portuguese doctor, Cristóvão da Costa in his Tractado de /as drogas y
Medicinas de Las Índias Orientales (1578). The latter describes in a much more detailed
manner many of the plant species mentioned by Orta and adds the iconographic
representations that were missing in Colóquios 16 .
However, both the Portuguese as well as the Spanish soon realized that they could
find natural products in the New World that could be applied in the field of medicine just as
well as the well-known spices of the Orient. The work that corresponded to the treatises of
7 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Orta and Costa with regard to the Western Hemisphere was written by the pen of Nicolás
Monardes, a doctor from Seville, and the three volumes of his work spread throughout the
educated circles of Europe as a documental body of unique worth 17 .
With regard to Brazil, the initial information first appeared in the letters and
accounts of Jesuits, such as those by Father Manuel da Nobrega or José de Anchieta, in
private correspondence by colonists, soldiers, sailors and travelers who went about
exploring and getting to know the land, as well as in descriptions that, for a long time,
remained unpublished, such as those by Pero de Magalhães de Gândavo, by Father Fernão
Cardim or by Friar Vicente do Salvador 18 .
These individuals described diseases and simple and compound medicines, based
upon an observation of the manner in which the Amerindians utilized natural products
within their reach to cure certain agues: the treating of cuts, stings and bites of insects and
snakes, the treating of upset stomachs of children and the full bellies of the adults 19 . In
some cases, the ingredients and the preparation of these pharmaceutical remedies were
hidden from the Europeans. It was generally the missionaries and the habitants of the
hinterland, whites and mixed race individuals in daily, and in some cases even intimate and
familiar, contact with the Amerindians, who had better success in unveiling these secrets.
Many of these observers were not doctors, nor did they have any intellectual or
theoretical training in the field of medicine or pharmaceutics. Their observations are not
exclusively oriented towards medical objectives but, rather, integrated in the scope of
travelogues, descriptions of the land, fauna and natural products of the Americas or works
of an economic or geographic nature.
When one considers the Brazilian case, one can state beyond a shadow of doubt that
the first systematic and in-depth studies of the medicinal properties of Brazilian flora were
made by the Dutch doctor Willem Piso who, along with Georg Marcgrave, participated in
the elaboration of the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, published for the first time in
Amsterdam in 1648 20 .
The information obtained by these individuals resulted in an integration of
American drugs in medical and pharmaceutical circles in Europe, sparking off an
important, albeit low volume, trade in these products, that was complementary to the
8 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ importation of more stable and effective products that were already known and had
traditionally been in use such as ipecacuanha, quinquina, quinine, coca, sarsaparilla,
tobacco, valerian, guaiacum and sassafras, which were destined to substitute some of the
remedies that were then in vogue, as was the case of mercurials by guaiacum in the
treatment of syphilis 21 .
These American drugs rapidly mixed with European remedies. If, from the very
outset of contact, they were used empirically by Amerindians, missionaries, individuals of
mixed race and middlemen who lived in the colony, they were soon incorporated into naval
and colonial medicine, substituting unstable and obsolete products by others which were
more accessible and effective. Integrated into European medicine, they caused alterations in
the products that were the basis for the composition of pharmaceutical prescriptions and the
prescription books of compendiums, pharmacopoeia and household remedies, and began to
be administered in therapeutic medicine ministered by those responsible for the treatment
and diagnosis of illnesses. They were used by the ladies of the court who wanted whiter
teeth and perfumed breath, by aristocrats who suffered from gout owing to the kind of
alimentary habits they followed and by everyone in cases of physical debility or fevers 22 .
However, this knowledge and utilization of the therapeutic properties of the plants
from the New World were the result of a gradual and cumulative process that was not
limited to the period of the Discoveries, contact or encounters 23 . It was the consequence,
albeit not exclusively, of the unveiling of the land, of its produce and the secrets that its
original inhabitants passed from generation to generation. I also feel that the utilization of
these products by the colonists was equally the result of the necessities of the new arrivals
in order to survive in environments that were often dangerous and hostile. I think that it
depended, above all, on the evolution of European medicine and pharmacology that, at the
end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, underwent a period of
experimentation and renewal.
It was during this period that many of the traditional beliefs of the curative virtues
of extravagant remedies, such as bezoar stones, elephant fat or anhuma horns 24 were done
away with. To substitute them, Europe sought new products that were more effective, more
natural and less harmful for the treatment of diseases. In this search, the New World was
9 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ considered to be a cornucopia that contained all the treasures that were worth the effort to
know, reveal and utilize.
This Europe of the 18th century, that witnessed the end of the plague and the
decline of leprosy, fought, with a certain degree of success, against epidemic diseases,
thanks to an effective policy of public hygiene, promoted and supported by the Absolutist
States and by individuals allied with secular and religious institutions on a local and
regional scale. But, above all, Europe sought to combat fevers - which were classified as
continuous (simple, putrid, bilious and malignant), intermittent (seasonal, daily, tertian,
quartan) and remittent or constant fevers - that, at the time, devastated the European
kingdoms and the colonies 25 . International commerce that enabled the diffusion of products
that benefited the quality of life of the European population was also related to the
propagation of pathological agents that were responsible for the appearance of "exotic
epidemics", such as typhus, yellow fever and cholera. In this sense, the 18th century could
well be called "the century of fevers 26 .
In this context, the American products, especially Peruvian quinquina, appeared as
the remedies of the moment, the quinquina plant even running the risk of extinction in the
areas where it originated 27 . As for other secrets with curative powers, they were sought by
travelers, naturalists, botanists, cosmographers, physicians, geographers, doctors, surgeons,
soldiers and merchants who undertook journeys, explored the territory and recorded their
efforts in accounts, diaries, official letters, memoirs and geographical maps or drawings 28 .
One of the most striking characteristics of this therapeutic medicine consisted
precisely of an increase in therapeutic plant resources with the exotic drugs brought back by
these scientific expeditions 29 . Individuals with varied scientific backgrounds, and even
those in administrative capacities, dedicated themselves to gathering traditional Amerindian
remedies; inventoried American botanical species, specifying their curative properties 30 ;
described in meticulous detail, the chemical and pharmaceutical characteristics of certain
plants; and collected exotic plant specimens, which they then tried to acclimatize in
botanical gardens and tested in pharmaceutical and hospital laboratories 31 .
10 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Many of the plants utilized by the Amerindians for curative purposes continue to be
used by the pharmaceutical industry for the same ends:
Aloe (Aloe vera)
used in dermatological remedies
Arnica (Arnica montana)
used for muscular aches, and as an
antiseptic and anti-inflammatory agent
Agrimony (Agnmonia gyposepala)
stimulates the working of the gall bladder
Cucumber (Cucunis sativus)
used for its diuretic action
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
used as a cardiac stimulant
Heal-all (Prunella vulgaris)
used for treating diarrhea
Passionflower (Passiflora incamata)
used for its calming effects
St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum)
used to treat mild depression and as a mood
enhancing agent
Thyme (Thymus serpyllum)
used against intestinal parasites
Vervain (Verbena officinalis)
used in dermatology to soothe itches
Wild chamomile(Matricaria chamomilla)
used for its spasmodic action and in
preparations
1
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl (ed.), America in European Consciousness, 1493-1750, Williamsburg, Chapel
Hill and London, Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press,
1995. 2
About the notion of America as "virgin soil for epidemics", cf. Woodrow Borah, "Introduction" in Cook,
David and Lovell, W. George (ed.), Secret Judgment of God': old World Disease in Colonial Spanish
America, Norman and London, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991, pp. 7 and ss. See also Dobyns, Henry F..
'Disease Transfer at Contact" in the Annual Review of Anthropology, 22, 1993, pp. 273-291. 11 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3
Rusell-Wood, A.J.R., Um mundo em movimento. 0s portugueses na Africa, Ásia e América (1415-1808),
Lisbon, Difel-Difusão Editorial AS, 1998, pp. 186-187. 4
Orozco Acuaviva, Antonio, "La cirurgia moderna y su proyeccion en la America Hispanica" in La medicina
en el Descubnmiento, edited by Riera, Juan, Valladolid, University of Valladolid, 1991, pp. 103-105.
5
Riera, Juan, “La medicina precolombina” in La medicina en el Descubrimiento, p. 25; Merbs, Charles F.,
“Patterns of Health and Sickness in the Pré-contact Southwest” in Columbian Consequences, vol. I,
Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, edited by Thomas, David Hurst,
London and Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, pp. 41 and ss. 6
Macaa, Robert, “Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in México” in
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXV (3), winter 1995, pp. 49-420.
7
Domingues, Ângela, Portugal e Brasil. Contactos, confrontos e encontros durante os primeiros anos da
presença portuguesa no Novo Mundo, Lisbon, lmprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1999, pp. 50-51 8
Alden, Dauril; MILLER, Joseph, “Out of Africa: the Slave Trade and the transmission of smallpox to Brazil,
1560-1831” in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XVIIII (2), Autumn 1987, pp. 195-224.
9
Borah, Woodrow, “Introduction” in Secret judgement of God”: Old World Diseases in Colonial Spanish
America, pp. 14-15.
10
Balée, William, Footprints of the Forest. Ka’apor Ethnobotany. The Historical Ecology of Plant utilization
by an Amazonian people, New York, Columbia University , 1994, p. 113,
11
Martín Martín, Cármen; Valverde, José Luís, La farmácia en la America Colonial: el arte de preparar
medicamentos, Granada, Universidad de Granada, Hermandad Farmacêutica Granadina, 1995, p. 24.
12
Riera Palmero, Juan, “La medicina precolombiana, p. 19
13
Martín Martín, Cármen; Valverde, José Luís, La farmácia en la America Colonial: el arte de preparar
medicamentos, p. 24.
14
Granjel; Luís S., “Las repercusiones medicas del Descubrimiento, p. 41.
15
Granjel; Luís S., “Las repercusiones medicas del Descubrimiento, p. 41.
16
Albuquerque, Luís de, “Garcia de Orta” in Dicionário de História dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, VOL.
1, Lisbon, Circulo dos Leitores, 1994, pp. 837-838; DIAS, José Pedro Sousa, “O odor e o sabor da
farmacologia galénica” in A epopeia das especiarias, GUERREIRO, Inácio (ed), Lisbon, Instituto de
Investigação Científica Tropical e Edições Inapa, 1999, p. 100. 17
Lopez Pinero, José Maria, "La historia natural de las plantas" in Historia de la ciencia y de la tecnica en la
corona de Castilla, Siglos XVI y XVII, edited by LOPEZ PINERO, Jose Maria, vol. III, Junta de León y
Castilla, Consejeria de Educación y Cultura. 2002, p. 566. 18
As only some examples of sources that can be utilised for this purpose I would cite Serafim Leite, S.J.
(edited by), Cartas do Brasil e mais escritos do padre Manuel da Nóbrega (Opera Omnia), Coimbra, by order
of the University. 1955; idem, Monumenta Brasiliae. Cartas dos primeiros Jesuítas do Brasil, 5 volumes,
Rome and São Paulo, Monumenta Historica Societatis lesus and Comissão do IV Centenário da cidade de São
Paulo, 1954-6; Pero de Magalhães de Gandavo, “História da Província de Santa Cruz” in O reconhecimento
do Brasil, edited by Luís de Albuquerque. Lisbon, Publicações Alfa, 1989; Fernão Cardim, Tratados da terra
e gente do Brasil, transcription of the text, introduction and notes by Ana Maria de Azevedo, Lisbon,
Cornissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1997; Frei Vicente do Salvador,
História do Brasil, 1500-1627, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte. Editora Itatiaia. Ltd. and Editora da
Universidade de São Paulo, 1982.
19
J.T. Garrett, The Cherokee Herbal. Native Plant Medicine from the Four Directions, Rochester, Vermont,
Bear & Company, 2003, p. 8.
12 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 20
Freedberg, David. "Ciência, comércio e arte. Trópicos negligenciados na junção da história com a história
da arte (excertos)" in O BrasiI e os holandeses, 1630-1654, edited by Paulo Herkenhoff, Rio de Janeiro,
Sextante Artes, pp. 200-205; Bella Herson, Cristãos-novos e seus descendentes na medicina brasileira (15001850, São Paulo, Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 1996, p. 91.
21
Critical book review by H. Beukers of the book by RUTTEN, A.M.G., Dutch Transatlantic Medicine Trade
in the Eighteenth Century under the Cover of the West India Company, published in Itinerario-European
Journal of Overseas History, vol. XXVI, no 34, 2002, p. 101.
22
Fernandes, Tânia Maria Dias, Plantas medicinais: memória e história da constituição da sua comunidade
cientifica no Brasil (pesquisa, industria e inovação), Ph.D. thesis in History of Sciences, University of São
Paulo, Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences, Department of History, São Paulo. 2001. p. 13; RIBEIRO,
Márcia Moisés, A ciência dos trópicos. A arte médica no Brasil do século XVIII, São Paulo, Editora Hucitec,
1997, pp. 22-26.
23
Ribeiro, Márcia Moisés, A ciência dos trópicos. A arte médica no Brasil do século XVIII, p. 26. 24
The anhuma is a bird belonging to the anhimidae family, whose horn was attributed with the virtue of being
a powerful antidote against poisons (Ribeiro, Márcia Moisés, A ciência dos trópicos. A arte médica no Brasil
do século XVIII, p 63). 25
In this classification, I took into consideration the study developed by the naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues
Ferreira as presented by Porto, Ângela, 'Das febres reinantes: a contribuição de Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira
ao estudo das enfermidades no Brasil Colónia” in Actas do I Congresso Luso-Brasileira de História da
Ciência e da Técnica, Évora, University of Evora, 2001, pp.226 and ss. 26
Peset Reig, José Luis, "La enferrnedad y los medicos" in Historia de la ciencia y de la tecnica en la corona
de Castilla, siglo XVIII, edited by Peset Reig, José Luis, Junta de Castilla y León, Consejeria de Educación y
Cultura, 2002. p. 215. 27
Pita, João Rui, "A quina e as outras drogas americanas na produção medicamentosa do Hospital da
Universidade de Coimbra nos finais do século XVIII" in Mare Liberum, nº 17, June 1999, pp. 200-202. 28
About the value of records as a means of verifications cf. Domingues, Ângela, "Viagens cientificas e
divulgação cartográfica" in A Nova Lusitânia. Imagens cartográficas do Brasil nas colecções da Biblioteca
Nacional (1700-1822), edited by GARCIA, João Carlos, Lisbon, Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações
dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2001. p, 73. 29
Fajardo Ortiz, Guillerrno, "Los caminos de la medicina colonial en lberoamerica y las Filipinas, Mexico",
Universidad Autónoma de Mexico, 1996, p. 129; Puerto Sarmiento, Francisco Javier, "Empirismo, arte y
creencia, en la época de la razón: la terapeutica farrnacológica ilustrada" in Historia de la ciencia y de la
tecnica en la corona de Castilla, siglo XVIII, p. 163 30
As relevant examples cf. Ribeiro, Márcia Moisés, 'Caetano da Costa Matoso: o ouvidor naturalista" in Varia
História. Special Edition on the Costa Matoso Codex. Nº 21, July 1999, pp. 346-347; “Mappa das plantas do
Brasil, suas virtudes e lugares em que florecem Extrahido de officios de vários médicos e cirurgiõens” in O
Patriota, 3ª subscription, nº 4, July and August 1814, pp. 3 and ss.
31
Cardoso, Walter, A adesão do Brasil setecentista à ciência moderna, PhD thesis in History presented at the
Department of History. Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Human Sciences of University of S3o Paulo, São
Paulo, 1991, p. 210.
13 Workshop Plantas Medicinais e Fitoterapêuticas nos Trópicos. IICT /CCCM, 29, 30 e 31 de Outubro The Portuguese discoveries and their influence on European medicine ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:
WATTS, Sheldon, Epidemics and History. Disease, Power and imperialism. New Haven & London, Yale
University Press, 1997, p. 84.
WEBER, David J., The Spanish Frontier in North America, New Haven and London, Yale University Press,
1992. p. 316.
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