Medicine, Trade and Empire

Download or read book Medicine, Trade and Empire written by Professor Palmira Fontes da Costa and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2015-06-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Garcia de Orta’s Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) was printed in Goa, the capital of the Portuguese empire in the East and a port city that occupied a prominent role in the circuit of trade. Orta, a Portuguese physician who lived in Goa for thirty years, presents dialogues concerning more than eighty different drugs, fruits, spices, minerals and medical preparations, all of them native to India or observed in use there. This volume analyses the Colloquies, its history, context and reception, and its value to historians as a symbol of the impact of globalization in a sixteenth-century medical world.