Documentary medical-anthropological research: prescriptions focused on pain management

Abstract

Introduction: the medical prescriptions or historical prescriptions in the territory of New Granada (present-day Colombia) reveal the evolution of disease management given the beneficial effects of administering some type of medicinal agent of plant, animal or mineral origin. Objective: To describe the treatment of rheumatism in the 18th and 19th centuries based on two medical prescriptions of the time based on the contemporary rationale of their physiological interactions. Materials and methods: Documentary search in the Historical Archive of the Octavio Arizmendi Posada Library at Universidad de La Sabana in Colombia, where the prescriptions entitled “Reumatismo” and “Rehuma” were found. Results: Four classes of treatments for rheumatic diseases used in the 18th and 19th centuries and mainly oriented to pain reduction are described. This article presents the physiological basis of these treatments, and how they may or may not have had some calming effect when examining their physiology. Conclusions: These Neogranadian colonial drugs do not deserve their use in the current context of medicine, but they may have represented a therapeutic aid at the time.