Medicine, Trade and Empire

"Garcia de Orta's book, Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) was printed in Goa, the main town and capital of the Portuguese empire in the East. A Portuguese physician of Jewish ancestry, Orta lived in Goa for almost thirty years. The port city was an important but remote territory in the Portuguese empire, occupying a prominent role in the circuit of trade and exchange of goods such as botanical simples, drugs and spices. Orta's Colloquies presents fifty-nine dialogues concerning more than eighty different drugs, fruits, spices, minerals and medical preparations, all of them either native to India or observed in use there during the author's time in the territory. The book had a market in Asia but was particularly valuable to a European audience, circulating widely in Portugal and Spain, as well as providing the basis for adaptations, commentaries and editions in various languages"--