Monique Palma, a researcher at CITCEM, was awarded the Pina Manique Prize for her doctoral thesis “Surgeons, surgical practices and knowledge in Portuguese America in the 18th century”. The award ceremony will take place on December 9, at 3pm, at the premises of the Portuguese Academy of History. The in-person session will be reserved for award winners and donors only, and the rest of the public can watch the ceremony via Zoom, through the following link: https://zoom.us/j/91611214480?pwd=ZTlLZlFzT0Z1aHdqakxEaWI0YTR4Zz09

Link for the announcement of the Award result: https://academiaportuguesadahistoria.gov.pt/wp/premios/

Abstract of the thesis “Surgeons, surgical practices and knowledge in Portuguese America in the 18th century”

Situated in the field of History of Sciences, specifically History of Medicine and Surgery, “Surgeons, surgical practices and knowledge in Portuguese America in the 18th century” continues an analysis of the profile and performance of surgeons who circulated in Portuguese America in the 18th century. With the understanding that the knowledge produced is not independent from the person who produces it, implying specific conditions of exercise, motivations, and constraints, the work intends to understand the contexts, practices, knowledge, and profiles of the agents linked to surgical practice in Brazil in the 18th century. Focusing on these health agents and the contexts in which they circulated, the book analyzes the number, geographical distribution and provenance, personal profile and professional background of the surgeons; their medical-surgical practices and the circulation of knowledge between Portugal and Portuguese America and vice versa.

Surgeons, as “practitioners”, as those who were closest to the sick and their bodies and ailments, could not but be considered priority targets of the policies of the colonial system and its representatives. Taking into account the emergence of epidemic outbreaks and the imperative of prophylactic measures and policies to contain the progression of certain diseases, particularly contagious ones, it is understandable that surgeons were at the center of discussions and political and administrative concerns in Portugal and Portuguese America.

The documentary sources also made it possible to enter into their daily lives, as well as into the professional background of these surgeons. It is hoped that the study of their personal trajectories will contribute to a historical understanding of the complex colonial Brazil and the eighteenth century Portuguese Empire, as well as of the processes of circulation of people and knowledge in a world that tends toward globalization.