Author(s): Cannon Sharp
Mentor(s): Patrícia Baialuna de Andrade
Institution BYU
In an attempt to view how diseases were contemplated and treated during the Brazilian colonial period, my research examines literary and historical accounts as well as medical literature contemporary to that era, dating as early as the sixteenth century until the proclamation of the Republic in 1889. The confluence and extensive interaction of indigenous American, African, and European peoples and traditions that occurred in the Portuguese colony made Brazil an exceptional historiographic case of intercultural assimilation of traditional knowledge. This research looks through the lens of colonial texts to consider the interplay and development of the distinct medical traditions among these three groups. Comparative textual analysis reveals a correspondence between the evolution of popular medical knowledge and the progression of New World society. The liberal exchange of knowledge of the body and its diseases between hemispheres produced a complex approach to the practice of healing that was heavily informed by what we would call folk medicine. Shamans and pajés (indigenous healers), referred to as thaumaturges by their Jesuit contemporaries, had as much, if not more, influence on the development of therapeutic practices as did the licensed surgeons and apothecaries of the courts and colleges, and the worlds of religion and magic were almost inseparably intertwined with healing practices as the Portuguese Empire sought to regulate the domains of knowledge against the popular influence of autochthonic and African traditions, a struggle reflective of the intercultural conflict and eventual merging characteristic of the Brazilian colony.