Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Apothecary workshops, apothecaries, and pharmaceutical culture in the establishments of the Society of Jesus in the ‘State of Brazil’, 1670-1759

Abstract

This work aims to study the process of systematization of pharmaceutical practices within the Jesuitical colleges of Portuguese America. This process began with the foundation of the Jesuitical apothecary workshops from 1670 until 1759 and the designation of specialized agents in the study and production of remedies that would be sold or given to the communities that constituted Portuguese society in the tropics. We will consider this process only within the jurisdictional sphere of the ‘Estado do Brasil’, striving to understand, by studying the ‘Catalogi breves et triennalis Provinciae Brasiliae’ – administrative documents of the Society of Jesus that aimed to inform the superiors about the many spaces of activity in Portuguese America and the many individual residents in each of those loci – how many apothecary workshops existed in the colleges of the Society of Jesus of Brazil, who were those apothecaries, how those men obtained their formation by studying their trajectories, what kind of medicine they produced and invented in those places and, finally, what is the importance of this production for the economic sustenance of the Jesuits in the Province of Brazil.

Keywords
History of the Society of Jesus; Jesuitical Science; History of Pharmacy

MCTI/Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi Coordenação de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação, Av. Perimetral. 1901 - Terra Firme, 66077-830 - Belém - PA, Tel.: (55 91) 3075-6186 - Belém - PA - Brazil
E-mail: boletim.humanas@museu-goeldi.br