When the Jesuits set up residence in Macao in 1562 or 1563, the first foothold into the great Empire of China, they first sought shelter below the cross where the Ermida de Santo António (Hermitage of St. Anthony) stood. Later they moved beyond there because of the need for water. 1This second residence was spacious and had an orchard and garden. It was to become the famous Colégio de São Paulo (St. Paul's College) which was soon to include an infirmary2 and a well equipped dispensary.
A report on the victory of the Portuguese over the Dutch in Macao, dated 16223 records: [...] we had twenty injured [...] that went to the infirmary in the St. Paul's College as Dom Francisco da Gama, Count of Vidigueira, was notified by the Senate, 4 [...] and we are most grateful to these Holy Fathers in this difficult time for the way in which they received our wounded in their College [...] both white and black and they cured them all of their ills, caring for them in the way required."
At the time the College already had its infirmary, later described together with the pharmacy in 1740 by Fr. José Montanha in his work Aparatus para a História do Bispado de Macao (Notes for a History of the Bishopric in Macao). According to José Montanha, the infirmary was not small and was for the use of the religious community, which numbered sixty, their pupils and, sometimes, for people from outside the monastery. The exact location was not recorded but a detailed description was given of the view from the "[...] new verandah, with views over the river."see ill.. p. xxx
Already in 1603 the dispensary was supplied with natural remedies and medications used in the most modern Western pharmacology for that period, the remedies being sent on request from Macao to Goa annually.
This dispensary was managed by one of the Brothers who was a specialist in preparing medications and who, on occasion, when there was a need, was called upon to treat patients both in the infirmary and outside the College. In a document drafted by one of these dispensary Brothers, in 1625, but not signed, it reports that until the seventeenth century, Macao had never had a graduate physician and it is therefore likely that those formerly reported as being medical doctors practising in that territory were only surgeons. 5
The dispensaries in the Jesuit colleges were in fact the best available in those days, and their place was important following the church, the library and the Salão dos Actos (Aula Magna).
Infirmaries were compulsory in all residences and colleges belonging to the Society of Jesus, and among the brethren of the Society there were more nurses than apothecaries among those dedicated to the 'mechanical arts'.
In 1625 Macao had no pharmacy or clinic, in the Portuguese style, other than those of the Jesuit College. 6 Both the College infirmary and pharmacy were soon brought to the attention of the population of Macao.
Like the College in Goa, the College in Macao soon became the cultural centre of the city. 7 According to Fr. Louis Pfister8 already at the start of the seventeenth century three advanced level courses were functioning (Mathematics, Astronomy and Geometry) and others at a lower level (Medicine and Natural History). There was also a third level of more elementary teaching in which students learnt to read and write as well as the rudiments of Latin. These three levels of teaching, to a certain extent, continue in teaching practices still used today. All these courses were open to the Portuguese population and probably to all other Christians. 9
The wealth of the St Paul's College pharmacy can be appreciated in a manuscript in which a remittance of medications for Goa is requested, the contents of which appear in the list shown below, 10 and its importance becomes even more obvious on examining the recipes that were used. 11
The livro das mezinhas de segredo (book of secret medicines) prepared by the apothecaries of the Jesuit colleges, 12 which includes some special cures prepared in the pharmacy of the St. Paul's College in Macao, throws some light on the remedies used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the recipes we can guess what some of the more common disorders were affecting the inhabitants of Macao at the time.
The medications imported from Goa and their secret ingredients are proof that many medications in the pharmacies were European, but quite a few were imported from Brazil and others, more Oriental in tradition, were possibly acquired on Indian markets. Other medications were peculiar to traditional Chinese medicine.
From the seventeenth to the eighteenth century the number of remedies used in recipes in the Western pharmacopoeia decreased. The polypharmic compendium had fallen into disuse along with some of its excellent concoctions. Many of the secret cures prepared by the Jesuit apothecary in Macao, dating from the eighteenth century, were of this type, although strange artificial stones were also used as well as the famous brews containing innumerable ingredients, some whose medicinal value has never been proved to the present day. This seems to prove that the Jesuits were informed of the scientific innovations of their day and that they were also capable of innovation. In fact, wherever they set up their colleges, the Jesuits quickly began to study the language, local customs and the curative plants of the region.
Evidence of the interest that Chinese medicinal drugs quickly roused in the Jesuits are the many documents, probably never edited, such as manuscripts of translations of classical medical books, an example of which is the Clássico do pulso (Classic on the Pulse), and various notes on the properties of different native plants, some of them accompanied by the Latin identification. 13
From the Carta Annua (Annual Letter) dated the 21st of December 1625, sent from Macao by the Jesuit Fathers, many were already the ingredients imported from Guangzhou for the pharmacy of the St. Paul's College. 14
These hybrid compositions served the population of Macao making the Jesuit apothecary famous throughout the Orient until 1762, when the Society of Jesus was expelled from the territory, the pharmacy was sold cheaply to a merchant who sent it to Goa. 15
After the Council of Trent (1545-1563), members of the clergy were prohibited from practising medicine. They were still allowed to be nurses and pharmacists but they could not become physicians or surgeons. However, the missionaries soon ran into difficulties in countries far afield and they also quickly realised that it was through cures made in the name of a new god who was thought to be omnipotent that they managed to obtain more converts than by using the word alone.
Using this reasoning, Fr. Francisco de Sousa thought that the esteem of the apostolic missionaries throughout the Orient would be greater and more converts made if in each one of the missions there was at least one good surgeon, "[...] rather than a physician whose cures were more risky and demanded vast experience of climates, possible complications and local medicine. He advocated surgery and medicine for these missionaries in the style we know it, as one of them said, above all imbued with the faith, the Christian faith and faith in healing which nowadays is such a prestigious art for certain diseases."16
Many Jesuit priests and brothers became famous in the medical arts and they were the most cultured men of their era. Besides this, the sons of the nobility and upper bourgeoisie studied in the Jesuit colleges and the order received fairly high donations as well as teachers of merit. The most skilled Jesuits went to the missions in the Orient, where the pagans already had religions that offered them everything that the Catholic religion had to offer, from the spiritual point of view, and in such places it was only by exhibiting some skill that the Jesuits could enter the court in China. The skills were usually practical, like medicine, or those closest to magical Oriental thinking, such as Astronomy.
However, medicine was one of the most important skills that the Society of Jesus taught its missionaries who were sent to live among pagan populations with a view to converting them. Added to their medicine was the comfort of blessings, prayers and the relics of their patron saint Ignácio, who brought about miraculous cures through the use of holy water, while preaching the faith, according to the writers of the Annual Letters sent from China and Macao to their Superiors. In those days, even lay medicine was not emancipated from a religious concept and it is therefore not surprising that the Jesuit priests and brothers when curing their patients with the most modern potions that Europe had to offer, further enhanced with regional ingredients, always attributed such cures to prayer and divine power.
The following descriptions of cures made among the Portuguese in Macao and Chinese pagans are evidence of this.
In their Carta Annua from the St. Paul's College of 1616, the Jesuit Fathers wrote of the doctrine practised in the hospitals and claimed that "[...] Our Lord has here (in the City of Macao) worked through the intercession of our Holy Fr. Ignatius [of Loyola] through whom our Lord has freed some women from the danger of child birth. And there was a boy aged two or three years with a very bad cough that was consuming him and who had already taken many medicines none of which cured him, and his father asked at this College for a relic holder of relics of the saint which is kept here for such needs, doing no more than placing the patient before the relics, and the boy began to improve and was completely cured, to the joy of his parents."17
The Carta Annua of 1620, 18 says that while in labour, the women were commended to the Holy Fr. Ignatius and when a relic of the Saint kept in the College was placed against their necks they were free of danger.
These practices, both the curative using erudite recipes updated with local ingredients, and supernatural practices persisted in Macao among the local population of Portuguese descent. Some recipes and beliefs have withstood the test of time and still have their supporters among ladies over the age of fifty.
Some of these local medical practices used in Macao will be quoted by way of example.
HOMELY REMEDIES
Orchata (Kernel) — a recipe passed down by word of mouth.
Kernel syrup (Port.: Xarope de orchata; Chin./Guangdongnese: hang ian chã) is a traditional drink, in Macao made from pumpkin seeds (Chin./Guangdongnese: kua chi) or with sweet almonds (Port.: amêndoas doces), i. e., almond milk (Port.: leite de amêndoas). The truly Macao version of orchata is the one prepared with the kernels of watermelon (Macanese: pateca) pips. Previously this drink was also known as xarope de orchata and it is mentioned in the Portuguese pharmacopoeia of the nineteenth century.
To prepare orchata the inner flesh of the watermelon pip is crushed in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle, and a little water is added. Put through a sieve and take off the supernatent oil. With the remaining liquid a syrup is made adding sugar slowly followed by rose water (Port.: água rosada) and then is returned to the stove to boil until a homogenous mixture is obtained. This drink is thought to be a tonic, cool, calming, good for the chest and useful in all cases of internal inflamation. It was taken mixed with water, like syrup of figs (Port.: capilé).
Orchata is an Iberian inspired preparation, probably from Asia, and it was quite likely an adaptation of the almond potion (Port.: amendoada) which in the seventeenth century, and possibly before, was used in Portugal to reduce fever. It was then made from lettuce, milk from the seeds of the gourd (Port.: leite de pevides da cabaça), melon seeds, hemp milk (Port.: leite de linhaça), fine white sugar and rose water, all cooked together over a low heat. It was taken every three hours in order to drive out fever. 19
In the eighteenth century this amendoada was made with almonds, sugar and the soft part of bread, which sounds more like a dessert than a remedy. However in the Farmacopeia Lisbonense, published in 1802, there is a recipe for orxata secca (Dry Kernel) (p.) 191 and another for orxata liquida (Liquid Kernel) (p.257). Both of these recipes include only sweet and bitter almonds, with one pound of sweet to two ounces of bitter, for orxata secca, and a pound and a half of sweet to two ounces of bitter for orxata liquida. A pound and a half of refined powdered sugar is added to the orxata secca, and four pounds to the orxata liquida which also has "[...] two pounds of spring water added to it and is then heated until it thickens."
The Orchata Macaense, which has survived to the present day, is probably a surviving version of the former amendoada made by the apothecary of St Paul's College in Macao, the composition of which appears in the livro das mezinhas de segredo of the Members of the Society of Jesus, 20 and it is as follows:
Amendoada refrigerante (Cooled Kernel Potion)
— Watermelon seeds
— Melon seeds
— Pumpkin seeds
— Cucumber seeds
— Sugar
"The method for preparation is as follows:
The skin is removed from the seeds and they are well crushed in a stone mortar and then pressed: all the oil is extracted and they are crushed again and then put through a fine wheat sieve and from the resulting powder two pounds are added to clarified sugar in liquid form but having lost most of its heat."21
Vinho de Quina (Quinine potion) — a recipe passed down by word of mouth.
This quinine potion is prepared by leaving quinine root (Macanese.: quina-quina; Chin./ Guangdongnese: kam tan pei), sold in Portuguese chemists in Macao, to soften for some time. This vinho de quina was taken as an aperitive but also used in the treatment of cold fever (Macanese: febre-frio), when it was used with a higher dose of quinine.
As a result of demand, quinine also came to be sold in Chinese chemists.
Quinine (Latin: Cinchona officinalis) or casca peruviana (lit.: Peruvian bark), as registered in Western Farmacopeia, is the bark of the Peruvian tree.
Quinine was already used to rid the patient of fever, in cases in which fever recurred every third or fourth day, or in intermittent fevers, and appears in the Pharmacapea Tubalense described as excellent anti-fever the same treatise, it is written that there were several recipes for potions or tinctures made from quinine, some of them "highly secret", and sometimes very expensive. 23 It was common in those days to bring anti-fever potions (Port.: vinhos febrífugos) from England, France or elsewhere, which were no more than quinine potions.
The recipe for one of these potions, which is recorded in the same treatise as being the best and most effective, is the following: "[...] to powdered quinine add ginseng root, contrayerva, the most tender upper branches of wormwood and the lesser centaury, amonia and tartar salts and sweet white wine. Allow this to soak for three days in a closed container in a warm place."24
The effect of the herbs was purely to improve the action of the quinine and the salts were added as the "[...] vehicle for penetrating, reducing and dissolving the more active parts of the medicinal properties of the potion, as well as serving to dissipate the humours, and the agitation that obstruct and close the ducts and vessels through which the humors circulate as these are the cause of fevers."25
The recipe of the apothecary of the Jesuit Fathers which was used in Macao is similar to this and probably competed with the similar Chinese remedy using dichroite (Port.: dichroa) as a base. But quite simply, the price was higher because quinine was an imported plant.
Mezinha de três paus (Homely remedy using three types of wood) — a recipe passed down by word of mouth.
One of the most original homely remedy recipes in Macao is, without doubt, known as the remedy containing three types of wood which was still used in the early decades of the twentieth century against cholera.
In Macao a 'conjunto de três paus' (set of three woods) were used to prepare this local remedy. These three pieces of wood were more or less cylindrical in shape and about the size of a thumb. Other requirements were a small clay grating pot (Chin. /Guangdongnese: sap-un; Port.: "prato-de passodente".) and a small sacrifice dish (Port.: tigelinha de sacrifício), always carefully stored in tin boxes or, in more modern times, in brass boxes, more or less hermetically sealed.
In the 1960s, Aurora Viana Brito and Abílio Basto had sets of these for preparing the mezinha de três paus. These people from Macao taught us how to use this cure. The wood pieces were grated one by one into the clay pot and the grated wood mixed with brandy which was then put in the small sacrifice dish. This was taken at the first symptoms of (Macanese: mordecim) fever which could be a simple indisposition but, on the other hand, cholera itself. This cure was considered to be very effective when taken right at the onset of the disease.
The three types of wood remedy includes:
1. Costus root (old Port.: costo; pop. Port.: gengibre). The root of Saussurea lappa [Saussurea hypoleuca] — Clarke (sin.: Aplotaxis lappa — Decne., and Aucklandia costus — Falc.). A native of India (Latin: Asteracea herbacea), but also grown in the province of Guangzhou, where it was known as mok heong (lit.: aromatic wood). The outer layer is brown and the inner part much lighter. It contains Saussurine alcaloid and other 'essential' oils such as (Port.: costulatona), (Port.: costal), (Port.: costeno), camphine (Port.: canfeno) and phellandrene (Port.: felandreno).
The ancients considered ginger to have fabulous properties and it was used by Galeno, Pliny and Arab physicians.
Garcia de Orta spoke of costus root "Do costo e da colerica passio [...]" ("On costus root and temporary cholera [...]")26 calling it by the Malay name pucho, and it seems that the drug was used a great deal in Malaysia. The name 'costus' comes from the Arab cost or cast. In Koncani [Dialect from the coastal region of Western India] the name kosht was used and the Guzerat [dialect of a state North-West of Bombay] name was uplot. This cure is used to this very day in the North of India as a cure for cholera.
For some time costus root had been exported to China where it was used in medicine and also to produce aromatic vapours. Today it is agreed that this species is a native of Kashmir and the slopes of the Himalayas where it is also used in local medicine and to repel moths from wool.
In European medicine it has been used for a long time, as explained earlier, and was considered to be a fármaco aperiente (pharmaceutical aperitif), which was both diaphoretic and diuretic. Laguna, commenting on Dioscorydes, described costus root and referred to its virtues.
Pillulas Douradas / Da Bottica do Coll° de Macao. / celeberrimas em todo o Reyno da Chin China. [...]
In: Colecção de Várias Receitas e Segredos particulares das principais boticas da nossa Companhia de Portugal, da Índia, de Macao e do Brazil, [... [], op. cit., fols. 279-280; and AMARO, Ana Maria, Introdução da Medicina Ocidental em Macau e as Receitas do segredo da Botica do Colégio de São Paulo, Macau, Instituto Cultural de Macau, 1992, pp. 57-58.
2. Aloes-wood, aggaloch or agila (Port.: águila, pau áugila or aquilária; Chin. /Guangdongnese: cham heong or mat heong) are the common names for the heart-wood of eaglewood. A native of the Himalayas and Assam (Latin: Aguilaria agallocha and Thymeleacea arborea). Used in ancient Western medicine under the name linaloes. Garcia de Orta referred to this tree explaining that the branches were imported from Malacca. 27 According to D. G. Dalgado, this species is the same as Aguilaria malaccensis — Lamk., and is native to Malaysia. Such a tree is indeed very similar to Aguilaria agallocha — Roxb.. According to the same author, linaloes is no doubt the product from both species.
Since ancient times linaloes has been used in Europe to treat several diseases, such as gout, rheumatism and diarrhoea.
3. Abuta, white pareira or yellow pareira (Port.: abuta, buta, or abutua; Latin: Cissampelus pareira — Brazilian species) are the common names for the wild vine (velvetleaf). The stem of this climbing plant and the root are commonly used in medicine. The root, which is the woody material, has a bitter flavour and is used as a tonic, diuretic and apperitif. In Brazil it is much used as a diuretic and for the treatment of all renal disorders.
In the Pharmacopea Tubalense, the "abutua" ("abuta") or "parreira braba")("wild vine"), is described as "[...] a root which is very similar to the trunks of our vines; [...] the authors claim that the best wild vine grows in Mexico, and it is thought by some that our Portuguese took it there; but there is no doubt that what was brought to this kingdom was from Brazil."28 The best was the longest, thickest, twisted, full of knots, black outside and grey inside. At first, the flavour is sweet but it then becomes sour and bitter. It was used powdered, mixed with water, against abscesses or against internal festering, because "[...] when caught right at the onset, the problem was resolved in a few days; but if the abscess had been there some time, or was full of material, then it would be opened and everything would be pushed upwards and brought out; and downwards, through the bladder, or urine."29 It was also used for other purposes, mixed with vinegar, such as a linament against falls and bruising, tapeworms (Port.: equinência), croup (Port.: garrotilho) and to ease labour. It was also used externally against inflamatory diseases of the skin (Port.: erisipelas), "[...] cholic and stomach pains preceded by flatulence or cold." It was also heated (Port.: em cozimento) to use as a poultice (Port.: fomentações) on the stomach, and was also used against "câmaras de sangue" ("blood pockets"), venereal diseases and renal disorders.
Among the secret recipes (Port.: mezinhas de segredo) produced by the Jesuit priests were the famous "pilulas douradas" ("gilded pills"), which seem to bear traces of the mezinha de três paus used against cholera.
"Gilded Pills from the apothecary of the St. Paul's College in Macao.
Exceedingly famous throughout the whole Kingdom of Cochin-China.
Ing [redients]:
— Rhinocerous blood ("Sangue de Abada")
— Alkoes-wood or Agallosh (Aguilaria agalocha — Roxb.)
— White amber (Port.: alambre branco).
— Saint Paul's earth ("Terra de São Paulo". White clay from Malta, the same as terra de malta (lit.: Maltese earth)).
— Bezoar stone ("Pedra Bazar". See below) [possibly goat or another ruminant besides cow].
— Red coral (limestone support for Isis nobilis)
— Costus root (Saussurea lappa — Clarke)
— Local cinnabar (Mercuric sulfide)
— Antimony cinnabar ("Sinábrio de Antimónio". Mercuric and antimony sulfides. Perhaps a mistake made by the copyist, instead of sulfato de antimónio (antimony sulfide)).
— Viper flesh.
— Campher.
— Myrrh.
— Amber ("Ambar". Probably, yellow amber).
— Musk.
— Extract of opium.
— Human breast milk ("Leite de peito de mulher").
— Cow bezoar stones ("Maçam de vacas — bezoar da China").
[These pills, according to the original copy, served...] for all types of diseases including blood disorders, hemorrhoids or indigestion problems [...]."30
In Macao they added abuta to the costus root and the aloes-wood in this recipe and accompanied this cure with a tea made from the peel of an aged orange, together with opium syrups prescribed by Western physicians. They also took it with powdered "pedra cordial" (lit.: "cordial stone") grated with a silver spoon, to which other mineral ingredients were added with the exception of cinnabar (red-lead). The famous "pedra cordial" from Goa still exists and is used in Macao to the present day and is one of the oldest of the secret recipes of the Jesuits and it was first invented in the seventeenth century by Gaspar António, a lay Brother of the Order in the St. Paul's College in Goa. It was also used as a heart tonic.
Many other examples could be quoted but we cannot go on at length.
The Macanese 'sons and daughters of the soil', on the eve of being obliged to emigrate or to become foreigners in their own land, return to their roots taking with them all their memories of the past and seek in these memories the foundations of their 'ethnic' origins, now gradually being lost. But a little of their cultural history remains in their folk medicine that the centuries have not been able to obliterate.
Translated from the Portuguese by: Sheilah Cardno
NOTES
1 PIRES, Benjamin Videira, Os três heróis do IV centenário, in "Boletim Elclesiástico da Diocese de Macau", 62(724-725) Out.-Nov. [Oct.-Nov.] 1964, pp. 687-728 — pp. 711 and 714: "[...] em que se agazalharão foi abaixo da Cruz onde esteve a Ermida de Santo António (p.711) [...] (no ano de 1582) se passarão (de junto da Ermida de Santo António) para cima e por não haver água [...] (p.714)."
2 Dispensaries and infirmaries are found in all Jesuit Colleges in Europe, following the example of the Parish of St. Ignacio de Loyola, in Rome.
3 BA: Jesuítas na Ásia (Jesuits in Asia), Cod. 49. V.3, [Várias notícias. 1579-1666 (Assorted reports. 1579-1666)]— In: Relaçam Annal das Cov- / sas qve fizeram os Padres da Companhia de lesvus, nas partes da India Orien-/ tal, & em alg-uas outras da conqui∫ta de∫te Teyno nos annos de 607. & 608. & do proce∫∫o da conuer∫aõ & Chri∫tanidade daquellas partes, com mais h～ua addiçam á relaçam de Ethiopia [...], Em Lisboa: Impre∫∫o por Pedro Crasbeeck, Anno 1611, vol. 21.
4 16th Viceroy of the Portuguese State of India from 1596 to 1600 and 22nd Viceroy again from 1622 to 1628.
5 The first payment to a surgeon is registered in 1676 in the Treasurer's cadernos de contas (accounts ledgers) in the Leal Senado of Macao, included in "despesas ordinárias" ("ordinary expenses").
6 BA: Jesuítas na Ásia (Jesuits in Asia), Cod. 49. V.6, fol. 346 ff., [Cartas ânuas de 1623 a 1628. China. Japão. Querela contra o Governador Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas. Compromisso da Misericórdia de Macau. Regimento do "língua" e jurubaças de Macau (Annual letters from 1623 to 1628. China. Japan. Dispute against the Governor Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas. Compromise of the Misericordy of Macao. Bylaws of the ";íngua" and jurubaças of Macao)] — In: Relaçam Annal das Cov/ sas qvefizeram os Padres da Companhia de lesvus [...], op. cit., vol. 24.
7The importance of the College was already such in the seventeenth century, that in 1616 seven-thousand books were sent to it, five-hundred a gift from the Pope.
8 PFISTER, Louis, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques de tous les membres de la C. ie de Jésus qui ont vécu en Chine pour y prêcher I'Évangile depuis la mort de S, t François-Xavier jusqu' à la supression de la Compagnie, Chang-hai, 1868-1875.
9 The children of residents paid fees so that access to courses was only possible for rich merchants. The Chinese were not admitted because it was thought that bringing Portuguese boys together with pagans was a risk to Christianity
See: BA: Jesuítas na Ásia (Jesuits in Asia), Cod. 49. IV. 66, fols. 17vo-18, [China. Diversas notícias. Séculos XVII e XVIII. Trata-se do último códice da série "Japão", e do primeiro da série "China" [...] (China. Assorted reports. Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. About the last codex of the "Japan" series and the first of the "China" series. [...])] — In: Relaçam Annal das Cov-/ sas qve fizeram os Padres da Companhia de lesvus [...], op. cit., vol. 18.
10 BA: Jesuítas na Ásia (Jesuits in Asia), Cod. 49. IV. 61, [Notícias das missões do Japão, Conchinchina, Tartária, China, Batavia, Tonquim e Ceilão. Vigários Apostolicos, enviados pela Sagrada Congregação da Propaganda da Fé, em controvérsia, na Índia, corn os Padres do Padroado Português no Oriente. (Reports of the missions in Japan, Cochin-China, Tartary, China, Batavia, Tonquin and Ceylon. Apostolic Vigaries sent by the Sacred Congrega tion of the Propaganda Fide, in controversy, in India, with the Fathers of the Portuguese Patronage in the Orient)] — In: Relaçam Annal das Cov-/ sas qve fizeram os Padres da Companhia de lesvus [...], op. cit., vol. 13.
11 ARSI: Cod. Opp. NN [Opera Nostrorum] 17 — Colecção de varias receitas e segredos particulares das principaes boticas da nossa Companhia de Portugal, da Índia, de Macáo e do Brazil, compostas e experimentadas pelos melhores medicos e boticarios mais celebres que tem havido nessas partes. Aumentada corn alguns indices e noticias muito curiozas necessarias para a boa direcção e acerto contra as enfermidades. Em Roma, an. MDCCLXVI, com todas as licenças necessárias.
12 Idem.
13 BACL: Série Azul (Blue Series), MS. 335.
14 BA: Jesuítas na Asia (Jesuits in Asia), 21 de Dezembro1625 (21st of December 1625) — See: Note 10.
15 SOARES, José Caetano, Macau e a assistência. Panorama médico-social, Lisboa, Agência Geral das Colónias, 1950, p. 189.
16 SOUSA, Francisco de, Oriente Conquistado a Jesus Cristo pelos Padres da Companhia de Jesus da Provincia de Goa, Lisboa, 1613: "[...] não digo médico cujas curas são mais arriscadas e demandam larga experiência de climas, das compleições e da medicina da terra. Mas cirurgia e medicina desses missionários à nossa maneira, como diz um deles, impregnada, antes de mais, de fé, de fé cristã de fé na cura qua ainda hoje tantos prodígios obra em certas doenças."
17 BA: Jesuitas na Ásia (Jesuits in Asia), Cartas anónimas, Cod. 49. V.7, fol. 99, [Ânuas da China e do Japão. 1603-1621. Receita da Procuratura da Província de Japão em Macau, de Setembro de 1617 a Agosto de 1618. Goa, Macau, Conchinchina, de 1621 a 1622. Hainão em 1618. [...]. (Annual letters from China and Japan. 1603-1621. Revenue Procuartorship of the of the Province of Japan in Macao, from September 1617 to August 1618. Goa, Macau, Conchin-China, from 1621 to 1622. Hainan in1618. [...].)]. —In: Relaçam Annal das Cov- / sas qve fizeram os Padres da Companhia de lesvus [...], op. cit., vol. 25. — "[...] Nosso Senhor tem nela (Cidade de Macau) obra port intercessão de Nosso Santo Padre Inácio por meio do qual tem N. Senhor livrado algumas molheres do perigo de partos. Estando hum menino de idade de dois ou três anos muito mal com hua tosse que o hia consumindo e tendo já tomado muitos remédios se nenhum lhe aproueitar mando o pay pedir a este Collegio um relicario de relíquias do Santo que aqui está guardado para semilhantes necessidades em apondo no minimo doente logo dali por diante começou a milhorar e sarou de todo com muita alegria dos paes."
18 BA: Jesuítas na Asia (Jesuits in Asia), Cartas anónimas Cod. 49. V.7, fol. 176 — See: Note 17.
19 COELHO, Manoel Rodrigues, Pharmacopea Tubalense Chimico-Galenica, 2 vols., Lisboa Occidental na Officina de António de Sousa da Sylva, 1735.
20 Colecção de Várias Receitas e Segredos particulares das principais boticas da nossa Companhia de Portugal, da Índia, de Macao e do Brazil, [...], op. cit..
21 "Farsehá do segte. modo: As pevides bel limpas de casca, e mto. bem pizadas em gral de pedra, se metrhao na emprensa: extraíto todo o olio, se tornam a pizar e se passem por peneyra de trigo fina: e deste pÓ duas libras se ajunta ao assucar clarificado, e em ponto de talhada, estando a mayo parte de calor perdida"
22 COELHO, Manuel Rodrigues, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 218.
23 Ibidem., vol. 1, p.386.
24 Ibidem., vol. 1, p.327 — "[...] jiunta-se, à quina-quina em p6, raiz de gensiana, de contra-erva, sumidades [ramos superiores mais tenros] de losna e de centaurea menor, sais de amoníaco e de tártaro e vinho branco generoso. Deixa-se macerar, durante três dias, em recipiente fechado, num lugasr quente."
25 Ibidem., vol. 1, p.349 - "[...] vehicular para peneyra, rarefied, e faze dissolver as partes mais actives dos simplexes do vinho, served timber ao memo tempo para defamer os humors, e ferments que obtrude, e Japão os conductors, e vases por node se não de circular os humors, que são os que promote as fibers."
26 ROTA, Garcia da, Coloquies dos ∫imples, e drogues he ∫ousas mediçinais da India, e a∫si dalg～uas frutas achadas nella onde ∫e tratam alg～uas cou∫ast tocantes amediçina, pratica, e outras cous∫as boas, pera ∫aber cõpo∫tos pello Doutor garcâ dorta: fi∫ico del Rey no∫∫o ∫enhor, vi∫tos pello muyuto Reuerendo ∫enhor, ho liçençiado Alexos diaz: falcam de∫embar-/ gador da ca∫a da ∫upricaçã inqui∫idor ne∫tas partes., Impre∫∫o em Goa por Ioannes de endem aos x. dias de Abril de 1563. annos., Coloquim XVII.
27 Ibidem., Coloquium XXX.
28 COELHO, Manoel Rodrigues, op. cit., vol. 1, p.188 — "[...] huma raiz muy parecida com os troncos das nossas parreiras; [...] os Authores convem em que a melhor parreira braba cresce no Mexico, de donde alguns presumem que os nossos Portuguezes a trazem; mas o certo he, que a nos vem a este Reyno he a do Brasil."
29 Ibidem., p. 189— "[...]porque estando ainda no princípio, o resolverá em poucos dias; mas se fôr já velho, ou tiver já matéria, o fará abrir, e deitar-lhe toda fora por cima; e por baixo, pela camara, ou ourina."
30 Colecção de Varias Receitas e Segredos particulares das principais boticas da nossa Companhia de Portugal, da Índia, de Macao e do Brazil, [... [], op. cit., fols. 279-280 — "Pillulas Douradas / Da Bottica do Coll° de Macao. / celeberrimas em todo o Reyno da Chin China. [...] pa. toda a casta de cursos ou sejão de sangue ou das ammorroides, ou cauzados de indegestão [...]."
Also see: AMARO, Ana Maria, Introdução da Medicina Ocidental em Macau e as Receitas de segredo da botica do Colégio de São Paulo, Macau, Instituto Cultural de Macau, 1992, pp. 57-59.
* Ph. D (Lisbon). Lecturer in Anthropology, Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (Institute of Social and Political Sciences), Lisbon. Consultant of the Centre for Oriental Studies of the Fundação Oriente (Orient Foundation). Author of a wide range of publications dealing, primarily, with Ethnography in Macao. Member of the International Association of Anthropology and other Institutions.
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