Medical knowledge exchanges between Brazil and Portugal: an ethnopharmacological perspective.
BACKGROUND
Like many traditional medical systems found at Latin America, the very existence of a Brazilian traditional medical system is debated. Despite the absence of written material and organized knowledge, there is little doubt that Brazilians from all regions and all social classes recognize and access an estimated 4000 plant species with alleged therapeutic purposes as well as medicinal practices ranging from bone setting to spiritual healing. This "Brazilian folk medicine" is usually described as a rich mixture of African, European, and Indigenous medical traditions.


OBJECTIVE
This study questions this view, and argues it is both simplistic and Eurocentric.


METHODS
By scrutinizing the origins of the medical uses of Zingiberis officinale, Curcuma longa, Ruta officinalis, Cephaelis ipecacuanha, Pilocarpus pinnatifolius, and curare (Chondrodendron, Abuta and Curarea), we illustrate the intense circulation of materials during imperial times. We further discuss how these practices articulated with local medical knowledge, and exemplify some of the ways by which knowledge was produced, transformed, incorporated, and resignified over time.


CONCLUSIONS
Though not a systematic or comprehensive analysis of Brazilian folk medicine development, these selected examples show that, in opposition to usual simplistic descriptions, complex and convoluted manners of medicinal plant development occurred over time to compound both the Brazilian and European pharmaceutical armamentarium.
Departamento de Botânica, Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Quinta da Boa Vista, s/n, São Cristóvão, 20940-040 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. ivmanzali@gmail.com
Ivone
I
Manzali de Sá
Elaine
E
Elisabetsky
D001938:Brazil; D028503:Cephaelis; D003472:Curare; D030024:Curcuma; D020834:Ethnopharmacology; D020939:Zingiber officinale; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D032103:Pilocarpus; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D011174:Portugal; D032105:Ruta
D003472:Curare