Did the Jesuit Knowledge of Chilean Medicinal Plants Travel with Them? The Consequences of the Jesuit Migration from Chile to Europe in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract During colonial times, Jesuit priests played an important role in the Chilean health system. In 1767, they were forced to move to Europe. To date, it has not been investigated what strategies were adopted by Chilean physicians to cope with this Jesuit movement and the loss of their ethnomedicinal knowledge. Based on the last inventory of Jesuit pharmacies and on the historical written sources that mention Chilean native species, this article sheds light on the impact of the Jesuit exile on Chilean scientific knowledge about medicinal uses of native flora. Overall, after the Jesuits moved to Europe, Chilean physicians appreciated their native flora less and favoured European knowledge of Chilean medicinal plants. These results show that Chilean physicians supported the coloniality of knowledge and the epistemic oppression of indigenous and local ethnomedicinal knowledge.