Abstract

ROQUE, Ricardo. The Wheat and the Chaff: Secrets and Medical Botany in Goa, c. 1840‑1930. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2018, n.115, pp.113-136. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.7019.

This article explores the dynamics of the research into and transformation of Indian vernacular medical knowledge by practitioners of Western‑style medicine in Goa between 1840 and 1930. By describing the flourishing field of medical botany in this Portuguese colony, the article contributes to re‑centering the histories of Portuguese medical orientalism, displacing its chronological focus from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. It is argued that this orientalist research field in indigenous knowledge and plants was based on a strategy of scientific translation, both political and epistemic, with two connected orientations: the work of incorporation of indigenous medical‑botanical knowledge (the so‑called secrets ) was followed by the political work of professional subordination and exclusion of the original indigenous practitioners.

Keywords : medical botany; orientalism; pharmacology; scientific translation.

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