Vision on slavery in the medical treaties dedicated to the diseases of the slaves in Portuguese colonial empire: the case of Brazil between 1735 and 1801

This article aims to compare the view on slavery in two medical books that circulated in colonial Brazil about slave diseases (one written and the other translated by surgeons working in Minas Gerais). The first of these is the medical treatise by Luís Gomes Ferreira, Erário mineral, published in Lisbon in the year 1735. The second is the translation made in 1801 by Antônio Vieira de Carvalho of the medical manual Observações sobre enfermidades dos negros, published in Paris in 1776. Comparing them will show: 1) that they are indicators of the ways in which slave relations of production were perceived in the richest and most urbanized captaincy of Portuguese America at different times of its historical experience; 2) that there were significant changes among them in relation to the form, ideological support and content of the way of seeing the world of captivity.

Keywords:
Slavery; Medical books of slave diseases; Colonial Brazil