Identity and the Construction of Memory in Representations of Garcia de Orta

From colonialism to global health: Frameworks for the history of medicine in Portugal's empire

“…They shared an abiding concern with what they viewed as the distinctive intellectual and clinical genealogy of Portuguese medicine, and they focused heavily on the identification of medical precursors and forebears (Martins, 2020; Matos, 2008). Their construction of a unique and distinguished lineage for Portuguese medicine and their assertions of Portuguese priority in the development of fields ranging from pharmacy to pathology were meant to either promote, defend, or celebrate imperialism and colonial rule (Costa, 2015). No single historical figure and no single historical text received more attention among these scholars than the physician Garcia de Orta and his Colóquios dos simples e drogas e coisas medicinais da Índia —a book of medicine and natural history published in Goa in 1563.…”

“…Both within and outside Portugal, scholars brought new questions to bear on an expanded array of more readily available archival sources. The same concerns that fueled work on Orta and the Colóquios also led scholars to expand efforts to compile, transcribe, and publish more wide‐ranging collections of documents from Portugal's imperial archive (Costa, 2015; Matos, 2008). Similar work has continued—now driven by a more critical, historicist stance toward empire and the realities of colonialism (e.g.…”