Entre Oriente y Occidente: los Coloquios de García de Orta y la circulación del conocimiento médico en el siglo XVI

This paper analyses the importance of Garcia de Orta’s Colloquies on the simples and drugs of India (Goa, 1563) in the construction and circulation of Asian botanical and medical knowledge in the sixteenth century. It begins by examining the combined importance of experience and testimony in Orta’s assessment of materia medica from India. It then considers the relevance of interaction and exchange of medical systems between the West and the East in the Portuguese physician’s understanding of medical knowledge and practices. Finally, it analyses how medical and botanical information provided by this work was reframed by Carolus Clusius and circulated in new forms in Europe.