The positions of Pedro Arata, Moisés Santiago Bertoni, Carlos Leonhardt and Guillermo Furlong in the debate about the role of the Society of Jesus in the introduction and development of science in the La Plata region are investigated. Written between 1890 and the late 1950s, these authors’ works not only analyze the medical, pharmaceutical and botanical knowledge of the Jesuit missionaries in the 1600s and 1700s, but also evaluate their contribution to scientific thinking in the countries colonized by Spain and Portugal. Their positions foretaste the historiographical debate about the reactionary nature of the Jesuit order and reflections about the contribution made by indigenous knowledge of American pharmacopeia to the knowledge the missionaries took to the continents where they were active.
historiography of the La Plata region; history of science; Society of Jesus; American pharmacopeia; medical botany