Between Goa and America

knowledge about cancer in two books written by Jesuits (XVIII century)

Resumo

In this work we comparatively analyzed two works written by Jesuits at the beginning of the XVIII century, the first in India and the second in America, which contained a chapter on cancer. Both works were influenced by humoral theory/Hippocratic-Galenic medicine, with appropriations of local knowledge. The works can be included in a set of books that gradually constitute the language of natural sciences in modernity, a process marked by the definition of new terms and concepts, and in which the fragmentation of certain meanings occured as a result of new empirical observations in the field of natural sciences. Translation processes and contact networks are relevant in the production of knowledge in both centers, but certain borders also make it difficult to translate concepts produced in other centers. The sources analyzed consisted of medical-surgical and pharmacy treatises from the beginning of the XVIII century, dictionaries of the period, as well as Annua Letters of the Jesuit Province of Paraguay and bibliography on the first modernity