Paper short abstract:

Referencing Jesuit Padre François de Rougemont’s manuscript of medical notes composed while in the mission fields of India and China, my paper discusses the construction of medical knowledge in the contact zones and its circulation in the 17th century between Asia and Europe.

Paper long abstract:

How Jesuits in the mission fields in Goa, Macao and other parts of China took care of their own health and that of the local people they were trying to convert? While relatively much is known about the Jesuits' scientific efforts to disseminate Indian and Chinese medical knowledge and materia medica to Europe, little is known about the cross-cultural interactions with local networks through which they acquired, reconfigured, and constructed knowledge of Asian remedies and therapeutics. The Flemish Jesuit François de Rougemont (Belgium, 1624-China, 1676) on his way from Lisbon to his missionary destination in China, via Goa and Macao, gathered a collection of medicinal plant descriptions, remedies and therapeutics. His manuscript, known as Breve Compendio de Varias Receitas de Medicina and currently preserved at the Bibliotèque Nationale de France, presents a rare opportunity to investigate how compiling botanical and medical knowledge in 17th century Portuguese holdings in India and China participated in the creation of global networks of medical knowledge and materia medica originating outside Europe.

My presentation introduces Padre François de Rougemont, his collection of medical notes, his missionary itinerary and the presumed medical skills he attained along the way. Following examples of medicines acquired, tested, and even prepared by the Jesuits, it discusses how copying, translating, and editing recipes and remedies collected from India and China by de Rougemont and other fellow missionaries participate in the construction of medical knowledge. In the conclusion, it shows how this constructed medical knowledge circulated between Asia and Europe.