Main description:

Despite its richness as a potential research field, the history of medicine in Portugal has received relatively little attention outside the country. This book develops some of the understudied themes of Portuguese medical history and delivers them to a wider audience by bringing together the work of a group of international scholars. Here, a unique set of innovative studies begins to uncover details of the lives, medical practice and research of some famous and less well-known Portuguese physicians, the Portuguese response to past pandemics, and analyses of a wide range of items of medical material culture and materia medica. The contributions here elucidate topics as wide-ranging as Graeco-Roman medicine and surgery, the history of spectacles, defence against plague and other epidemics, the history of medicinal emeralds and cinchonine, and echoes of the first female forensic physician in Portugal. This book will appeal to all those with an interest in the history of science, and especially those who enjoy the history of medicine and pharmacy.