The transit of plants: circulation of medical knowledge in South America

Since the first voyages to the New World, the identification of products that could be used as commodities guided observations of plants in the Americas as well as their uses by native populations. Construction of knowledge about flora occurs simultaneously as the market expands; the transit of goods and knowledge is part of a complex process of transforming plants into goods, and constructing knowledge about them played a central role in this process.

 In the article The transit of plants: circulation of medical knowledge and practices in South America during the Modern Era, Heloisa Meireles Gesteira, Principal researcher at Museu de Astronomia e Ciências Afins (Mast), in Rio de Janeiro, looks at records on plants and herbs made by doctors, healers, missionaries, and colonial administrators in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Her article explores ways of constructing knowledge about flora using the concept of circulation proposed by Kapil Raj.

Gesteira, Heloisa Meireles. O trânsito de plantas: circulação de saberes e práticas médicas na América Meridional durante a Época Moderna. História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos [online]. 2022, v. 29, n. 1 [Accessed 1 June 2022] , pp. 41-59.

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