Diseases and memories of cures among slaves in southwestern bahia- Brazil: neurological and rheumatologic diseases

This article aims to present the research about diseases that attacked the slaves’ health in the 19th century, in the Imperial Vila da Vitória, nowadays the city of Vitória da Conquista, located in the Southwestern Bahia, Brazil as well as memories of techniques of cures, plants and herbs in order to cure the sick body. One used is the quanti-quanlitative and the methodology of documental kind, classified as exploratory and descriptive. The sources are 460 inventories, in which there are 2,159 slaves, being described as sick people. For the research, one analyzed the captive with neurological and rheumatologic illnesses, with a total of 25. Besides, this work exposes the treatment for the aforementioned diseases, relating the herbs and the plants most used in the 19th century as a form of cure; it points out that these cure practices were passed from generation to generation and are still employed to cure illnesses; and it evidences that the techniques of the cures rendered at the time of colonization make up the memory of the population that lives in Southwestern Bahia, and that continue to be used to cure contemporary illnesses.