This article is about a manuscript recentely found in the National Library of Rio de Janeiro, Curiosidad un libro de medicina escrito por los jesuítas en las misiones del Paraguay, 1580. The main subject of the paper is to show how the studies and observations of the Nature in the New World were related with the process of conquest of America during the 16th and 17th century. The studies of medical botany are a good example because this knowledge was made in an organized way and controlled by the Jesuits in the Portuguese colonies in America. This article concerns on the roll played by the healing in the Jesuitical project of conquest, and also the medical theories applied by them.
nature; social history of science; colonization