Carta do editor

Abstract

This collection of articles is product of an initiative in scientific collaboration between Brazil and Portugal through the Oswaldo Cruz Foundations Casa de Oswaldo Cruz and the University of Lisbons Institute of Social Sciences. While these two bodies have quite similar structures and objectives within the field of research and graduate teaching, they pursue differing yet complementary scientific and disciplinary agendas. The Casa de Oswaldo Cruz focuses on the history and the preservation of the memory of the sciences and health in Brazil whereas the Institute of Social Sciences brings together more diversified fields of study and projects that are independent of each other. It was our common interest in the social and ethnographic history of medical practices that prompted us to undertake the bi-institutional project Medical knowledge and therapeutic practices within the realms of Portuguese colonization. The initial team comprised