Atlantic Materia Medica (Digital Catalogue)
Western medicine was born in the Mediterranean world, as the result of cross-fertilization between the rich healing traditions of peoples living in southern Europe, northern Africa and the Near East. It came of age, however, in the Atlantic world. In this new phase of its complex evolution, Western medicine grew out of creative interactions between peoples from Europe, western Africa, and the Americas.
From the sixteenth century onwards, the consolidation of long-distance sea routes fueled successive waves of cultural hybridization that had a significant impact on medical practice. Healers and patients traveled along these routes carrying exotic germs, medical textbooks, preconceived notions, and miraculous drugs. These nomadic agents were instrumental in the development of novel strategies for collecting, organizing, and processing vast amounts of information about the human body and the natural world. This exhibit is an attempt to show how transoceanic circulation contributed to the development of some of the healing practices, public health initiatives, and scientific principles that lie at the core of modern Western medicine.
Francisco Hernández, and others
Nova plantarum, animalium et mineralium Mexicanorum historia
1651-1649
Willem Piso, and others
Historia naturalis Brasiliae : auspicio et beneficio illustriss. I. Maur...
1648
Christian Mentzel, and others
Pinax botanonymos polyglottos katholikos, Index nominum plantarum univer...
1682
Francisco Hernández e.a.
Quatro libros. De la naturaleza, y virtudes de las plantas, y animales q...
1615
Alonso López de Hinojosos e.a.
Summa y recopilacion de cirugia, con un arte para sangrar, y examen de barberos
1595
Contributor: Nic. van Geelkercken
Reys-boeck van het rijcke Brasilien, Rio de la Plata ende Magallanes : d...
1624
João Ferreira da Rosa e.a.
Trattado unico da constituiçam pestilencial de Pernambuco offerecido a ...
1694
Francisco Xavier de Balmis
Demostracion de las eficaces virtudes nuevamente descubiertas en las rai...
1794
Joseph Gumilla e.a.
Historia natural, civil y geografica de las naciones situadas en las riv...
1791
Collins, Dr, and others
Practical rules for the management and medical treatment of negro slaves...
1803
François Monginot e.a.
A new mystery in physick discovered, by curing of fevers & agues by quin...
1681
Francesco Torti, and others
Francisci Torti Mutinensis philosophae, et medicinae doctoris; in patrio...
1756
Bernardino Antonio Gomes
Ensaio sobre o cinchonino, e sobre sua influencia na virtude da quina, e...
1812
Credits
Curated by Heidi Scott, with assistance from Kenneth C. Ward.
Project Creator(s)
- The John Carter Brown Library