The notarial documents in the history of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Abstract

Has been increasingly common to use notarial documents for the investigation of the thematic area of economic history, social and cultural. However,some of these sources have proved to be also relevant for studies of the history of health sciences. Inventories, accounts and testamentary property assessments from doctors, pharmacists, practical health and dying in the region of Minas Gerais in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, feature a range of information relating to equipment, books and medicines. Such sources can demonstrate how it was the work of the pharmacist, the knowledge about the science and practice of healing period. This article is a survey of what is found in these documents and demonstrates the possibility to use for assistance in studies of the history of pharmacy and health sciences, opening paths to new insights and research subjects, but mainly to allow understanding the knowledge of healing and the area of pharmacies.