Verzamelen van medische kennis tijdens Nederlandse expeditie in Brazilië, 1639

The Dutch expansion into tropical climates, starting in the 1590s, posed practical problems of prevention and therapy for the doctors and surgeons of the trading companies (the Dutch West India Company (WIC) and the Dutch East India Company (VOC)). The first specialised manual on tropical medicine was published in Dutch in 1694. It presented information that was based on practical experience and on knowledge obtained from earlier colonists and from the indigenous population. Obtaining information from the latter required the help of a specific kind of researcher, the so-called ‘adventurer-scientists’. One of the most important among them was the German Georg Marcgraf, who in 1639 joined an expedition of slave traders to the inlands of Brazil to collect botanical and zoological information, including information on medicinal plants.

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: Vereniging Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde.