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Medicine and Botany
Garcia de Orta's description of the pharmaceutical species of the Orient is one of the unquestionably accepted contributions to Western medicine resulting from the Discoveries.
Year: 1563
In the 16th century, Medicine was one of the scientific disciplines in which the Portuguese were remarkably distinguished. The more outstanding personalities in this area of knowledge were Amato Lusitano, Garcia de Orta, and Cristóvão da Costa.
Garcia de Orta was an innovative physician who enjoyed an international reputation. His studies on botany and on some Eastern diseases gave him vast experimental knowledge, the results of which he published in “Colóquios dos Simples Drogas e Cousas Medicinais da India” (1563). His trust and pride in the new Portuguese knowledge led him to declare: “One knows more now in one day through the Portuguese than one did through the Romans in a hundred years.”
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