“La cirurgia sirve mucho mezclandose al mismo tiempo un poco de almaciga”: um estudo sobre as concepções, os diagnósticos e os tratamentos de tumores na América Platina (séculos XVII e XVIII)

Abstract

In this study, we seek to identify and discuss the conceptions, diagnoses and treatments of tumors used in the region covered by the Jesuit Province of Paraguay in the transition from the 17th to the 18th century, a theme that has not yet been addressed in studies on medicine practiced in colonial America. To this end, we resorted to Jesuit documentation, with emphasis on the Carta Anua and treatises on medicine and surgery written by Jesuits, comparing them with the existing production on tumors in the same period. The lists of acquisitions of medicines, books and instruments by the Jesuit Order Attorneys will also be used in order to understand and evaluate the dynamics of supplying the high schools' apothecaries and the reductions maintained by the Society of Jesus. The lists of purchase of pharmacy items revealed the periodic supply of colleges and reductions, as well as the work of prosecutors and settlers/colonial agents, in addition to the formation of commercial networks. The research dialogues with references of the history of health and diseases, of medicine and of the history of sciences, taking into account the circulation and appropriation of knowledge and practices in modernity. Regarding the conceptions about tumors by the jesuits, it was found that they are perceived both as ills of the soul and as bodily diseases. The diagnoses, in turn, involve the description of characteristics of coloring, the absence or presence of pain, swelling or accumulation of moods, perceptible through touch, and their treatments are heterogeneous and influenced by both magical-religious practices and procedures. based on humoralism. Both Ânuas and Libro de Cirugía, an anonymous manuscript of surgery that still remains unpublished, point to the realization of experiments, the appropriation of local knowledge and the wide use of works by classical and period authors, revealing the hybrid character of the medicine practiced in the reductions of the Jesuit Province of Paraguay.