Garcia de Orta

Garcia de Orta was a Portuguese Renaissance Sephardi Jewish physician, herbalist and naturalist. He was a pioneer of tropical medicine, pharmacognosy and ethnobotany, working mainly in Goa, then a Portuguese colony in India. Garcia de Orta used an experimental approach to the identification and use of herbal medicines rather than the traditional approach of using received knowledge. His magnum opus was a book on the simples and drugs published in 1563 Colquios dos simples e drogas da India, the earliest treatise on the medicinal and economic plants of India. Carolus Clusius translated it into Latin which was widely used as a standard reference text on medicinal plants. Garcia de Orta died before the Goa Inquisition began in Goa but in 1569 his sister was burnt at the stake for being a secret Jew and based on her confession his remains were later exhumed and burnt along with an effigy. Memorials recognizing his contributions have been built both in Portugal and India.

Garcia de Orta was born in Castelo de Vide, probably in 1501, the son of Ferno da Orta, a merchant, and Leonor Gomes. He had three sisters, Violante, Catarina and Isabel. Their parents were Spanish Jews from Valencia de Alcntara who had taken refuge, as many others did, in Portugal at the time of the great expulsion of the Spanish Jews by the Reyes Catolicos Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain in 1492. Forcibly converted to Christianity in 1497, they were pejoratively classed as Cristos Novos and marranos . Some of these refugees maintained their Jewish faith secretly. A friendly neighbour at Castelo de Vide was the nobleman Dom Ferno de Sousa, Lord of Labruja, who may have influenced the idea Garcia father to send him to University. Dom Fernos son Martim Afonso de Sousa would become a key figure in later life.

Source: Wikipedia