The article tells the story of Pai Manoel, a healer who claimed he had a remedy for cholera. A slave from the Guararapes sugarcane plantation in Recife, Pai Manoel was the center of an episode during the 1856 epidemic outbreak that called into question the work of physicians and the efficacy of the treatments they used. This moment of crisis revealed underlying tensions between those who were authorized to treat the infirm, applying scientific methods, and others, who used traditional knowledge in their treatment. The article discusses such topics as the shaping of the field of medicine in Brazil and, especially, in Pernambuco, and the strategies devised to guarantee the exclusive right to practice medicine and to combat competing forms of healing.
folk healing; medicine; cholera; Recife; Imperial Brazil