Description

José Maria BOMTEMPO (1774 – 1843).

Rio de Janeiro: Na Regia Officina Typographica, 1814.

 

In 1808, in the wake of Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal, the Portuguese royal court departed in exile to Rio de Janeiro, making Brazil the centre of the Portuguese Empire (representing the first time that an American colony held pre-eminence over its mother country, turning imperialism on its head!). This move had a revolutionary effect upon Brazil, as the regime of the Prince Regent Dom Pedro (later King Pedro IV of Portugal and Emperor Pedro I of Brazil) established many first rate European-style institutions in Brazil, including universities, medical schools, libraires, museums, miliary colleges, and the Impressão Régia (the first printing press in Brazil, established in 1808). These institutions formed the basis of a Brazilian national identity, giving rise to Brazil’s independence in 1822.

Brazil’s role at the centre of a pluricontinental empire made it a nexus of intellectual discovery, as there many newly well-funded scientists were able to experiment with, often exotic and little studied, natural materials from places such as the Brazilian Amazon, Angola, Mozambique, India and the Far East. This formed the basis of Brazil’s transformation from a intellectual backwater into an academic superpower.

The Present Work in Focus

This is “the first Brazilian pharmacological handbook”, made specifically for use by doctors working in the field in Brazil. Published in Rio de Janeiro by the Impressão Régia [here referred to by its alternate name, the ‘Regia Officina Typographica’], it was authored by José Maria Bomtempo, the Royal Physician to Dom Pedro, a founding professor or principal at several of Brazil’s new medical institutions, and the former chief doctor of Angola. He was a foremost authority on the medical uses of tropical plants and, beyond his duties at court, his main preoccupation was developing curricula for doctors in Brazil, with special emphasis on pharmacopeia based on locally obtainable natural materials. As the present work reveals, Bomtempo was vastly knowledge of European medicine and chemistry, and aptly adapted this to the New World. In this sense, he personified the spirit of the resurgent Brazil.

The work, while technically meticulous, its surprisingly readable for a medical text, and Bomtempo’s descriptions of how to make pharmacological concoctions out of items such a jungle plants is quite engaging, even for a reader with no background in health sciences.

In the ‘Prefação’, Bomtempo recalls that the genesis for the book came when he was appointed by Dom Pedro as the founding ‘Chair of Materia Medic’ (essentially the first Brazilian pharmacology programme) by the Royal Decree of April 12, 1809. Specifically, his mandate was to “instruct the Surgeons of the Army and Royal Navy in the general principles of this science [pharmacology]”.

Key to this endeavour was writing a manual, or pharmacopeia, for the use of student doctors, which was to be of a practical nature, so allowing them to employ natural materials commonly available in Brazil. Bomtempo notes that while he completed the manuscript for the work in September 1810, supposedly due to administrative delays, it was not printed by the Impressão Régia until 1814.

In his introduction, or ‘Plano da Obra’, Bomtempo writes that he seeks to create a “General Pharmacopoeia”, and so to allow it to be practically useful in the field, he has “reduced the description of drugs to a small number” while forming their classification “in alphabetical order”, as this “conciliates greater brevity” and ensures “less work for the mind”.

In the ‘Secção Primeira’ (pp. 1-25), entitled ‘Lectures on materia medica’, Bomtempo remarks that “Materia Medica is that knowledge which in itself contains the means to contribute to the reestablishment, or restoration of health. The object of this experience is different bodies from the three Kingdoms of Nature [animals, plants, and minerals], both in the simple state and combined through Medical Chemistry”. The section introduces the elements of medical chemistry, so described in the ‘General Catalogue of all Seven Classes of Remedies’.

The ‘Secçao Segunda’ (pp. 26-137) features a thorough “Description of the substances extracted from the three Kingdoms of Nature, and most frequently used in the practice of medicine”. This comes in the form of an alphabetical catalogue of natural substances, mostly from the tropical world, that had pharmacological utility. This includes some exotic and fascinating items from Africa, the Americas and Asia, that reveal Bomtempo’s vast expert knowledge obtained in Angola and Brazil.

In the ‘Secçao Terceira’ (pp. 138-165) Bomtempo describes the ‘Generalities of Pharmacy’, remarking that “Pharmacy is a part of Materia Medica that teaches how to know, choose, prepare, and combine the various medicinal substances”.

The ‘Secçao Quarta’ (pp. 166-243), entitled the ‘Art of Formulating’, is a Pharmacopoeia containing a “Description of the Preparations contained in the Secção Primeira”. Here Bomtempo notes that “The art of formulating is that part of the Materia Medica which teaches how to combine and graduate the doses of medicines”. It features the intriguing subsection, ‘Preparations and Compounds contained in this Treaty, their Sounds and Voices’ (pp. 170-243).

Provenance

The present example of Bomtempo’s work has a stellar provenance, as, in 1909, it was gifted to Dr. Alfredo do Nascimento e Silva, the President of the Academia Nacional de Medicina (of Brazil) by Dr. A. Ferreira da Rosa, who we gather was a prominent Brazilian epidemiologist. Thus, the present example of the work was written by Brazil’s first chief doctor, and then given to the country’s then chief doctor almost a century later!

The book’s bespoke black full morocco binding is gilt debossed, on the front cover, with the dedication: ‘Ao seu Amigo Dr. Alfredo de Alfredo do Nascimento e Silva, Actual Presidente da Academia Nacioal de Medicina / Off.ce Ferreira da Rosa, esta reliqua 18/1/[1]909’.

Alfredo do Nascimento e Silva (1866 – 1951) was a prominent Brazilian physician who specialised in military medicine and epidemiology (especially combatting tuberculosis). Born in Rio, he graduated with a doctorate in medicine from the Faculdade do Rio de Janeiro in 1888. From 1890, Nascimento e Silva taught biology, botany, zoology, chemistry and physics at the Escola Superior de Guerra, the Escola Militar da Praia Vermelha and the Escola Militar do Realengo. He held the military rank of Major and was an honourary doctor in the Army Health Corps. Nascimento e Silva also taught at the Liceu Literário Português, Ginásio Pio-Americano, the Externato Aquino and the Policlínica de Botafogo.

Nascimento e Silva became a member of the Academia Nacional de Medicina in 1892, serving as its President from 1908 to 1909. He was also the President of the Brazilian League against Tuberculosis and variously a board member of the Museu Nacional, the Instituto de Docentes Militares and the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro.

A Note on Rarity

The present work is very rare, like pretty much all Impressão Régia imprints. We can trace examples in 8 institutions, being the Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil, John Carter Brown Library, Harvard University, National Library of Medicine (Bethesda), New York Academy of Medicine Library, Wellcome Library, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (2 examples).

José Maria Bomtempo: Brazilian & Portuguese Royal Doctor and Pioneering Pharmacologist

José Maria Bomtempo (1774 – 1843) was a highly consequential figure in the field of medicine and pharmacology in the Portuguese Empire and Brazil. Born in Lisbon to an affluent noble family, he graduated in medicine from the University of Coimbra in 1798. The following year, he was made físico-mor (essentially chief medical officer) of Angola, a post he held until 1807. During that time, Bomtempo became fascinated by the pharmacological properties of African plants, and how key species could be introduced to Portugal and Brazil. Importantly, while many such plants had been investigated by laymen missionaries and explorers, Bomtempo was often the first to analyse them scientifically for their medicinal value.

Bomtempo returned to Lisbon upon the French invasion of Portugal, determined to serve his country in any way possible. The Prince Regent Dom Pedro hugely admired Bomtempo for his work in Angola and appointed him to join the medical team of the royal court as it left Portugal for exile in Rio de Janeiro.

In Brazil, Bomtempo’s career thrived as the royal court established many new medical institutions, providing him with opportunities for leadership and scientific experimentation that would never have been available in Europe.

Bomtempo became the Medico da Sua Real Camara (chief doctor) to the royal court of Dom Pedro (later King-Emperor of Brazil and Portugal), Professor at the Escola Anatômica, Cirúrgica e Médica do Rio de Janeiro, the Interim Director of the Academia Médico-cirúrgica, and the Chair of the Matéria Medica (pharmacological) commission.
Bomtempo became a world-renowned authority on tropical medicine and the pharmacological use of plants, of both African and South American origin. This led him to publish a trio of highly important tomes which are foundational works of Brazilian medicine, including the present Compêndios de matéria médica… (Rio de Janeiro, 1814); the Compêndios de medicina prática, feitos por ordem de Sua Alteza. Real… (Rio de Janeiro, 1815); and Trabalhos médicos, oferecidos à majestade do Sr. D. Pedro I… (Rio de Janeiro, 1825). Francisco Guerra remarked that “Bomtempo’s publications on Pathology and Therapeutics show a degree of maturity, rarely found in the European medical literature of that period” (Guerra, p. 8).

Becoming a Brazilian citizen in 1824, he remained in Rio for the rest of his life. While he formally retired in the late 1820s, he remained a senior advisor to the Brazilian Emperor, while continuing his medical-botanical experiments.

References: John Carter Brown Library: C814 .C736d; Harvard University: Rare Books RS153 .B63; National Library of Medicine: WZ 270 / B695co 1814; Wellcome Library: EPB/AM/B.15; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: Jl 4932; Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (2 examples): S.A. 47307 V. and S.A. 9137 P.; OCLC: 1029932888, 252909867, 1238110885; Ana Maria de Almeida CAMARGO & Rubens Borba de MORAES, Bibliografia da Impressão Régia do Rio de Janeiro, vol. 1, no. 390, p. 134; Francisco GUERRA, Bibliografia medica Brasileira, Período Colonial 1808-1821 (New Haven, 1958), no. 29 (p. 30); INOCÊNCIO, Diccionario bibliographico portuguez, vol. V, p. 23.