José Pinto de Azeredo Essays on Some Maladies of Angola, Stewart Lloyd-Jones (trans.), Timothy D. Walker (ed.), with contributions by Adelino Cardoso, António Braz de Oliveira and Manuel Silvério Marques (Dartmouth, MA: Tagus Press, 2016), pp. x, 151, $24.95, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-933227-69-6.

José Pinto de Azeredo’s major work was first published in Portuguese in 1799, under the title Ensaios sobre algumas enfermidades d’Angola. Thanks to the initiative of editors Timothy D. Walker et al., and translator Stewart Lloyd-Jones, Azeredo’s book has finally received an English edition. The author of Essays of Some Maladies of Angola was a Brazilian-born physician trained at the universities of Edinburgh and Leiden by some of the most advanced medical theorists of the late eighteenth century. After finishing his studies in Europe, the young doctor was nominated at the age of 24 as Chief Physician of the Portuguese colony of Angola. In these Essays, Azeredo describes his experiences in treating patients during his seven-year (1790–97) appointment in West Central Africa. This English version of the Essays is enriched by the addition of three articles on Azeredo’s life and work, and by the use of clarifying footnotes to assist readers less familiar with medical terminology. Walker’s contribution places Azeredo’s work in the broader context of the Atlantic World and considered as a result of Portuguese colonial policies intended to support the colonial enterprise. Adelino Cardoso explores evidence in Azeredo’s work that shows his abandonment of Hippocratic tradition to embrace medicine as a natural and social science. António Braz de Oliveira, in turn, provides new insights into Azeredo’s personal life and his time as a student in Europe, while Manuel Silvério Marques demonstrates Azeredo’s medical contributions. Azeredo’s work is composed of four essays describing the illnesses that affected the population of the colonial capital of Angola: remittent fevers, intermittent fevers, dysenteries and tetanus. In each case, the author explores the history, pathology and therapy indicated for the disease. In doing so, he makes reference to internationally known medical authorities without refraining from criticising their work and showing his contribution to this scholarship. As a man of the Enlightenment, the Brazilian-born doctor places a high value on empirical knowledge. Connecting theory with observation, he states ‘there will never be progress if we use one without the other’ (p. 78). As Walker’s contribution demonstrates, Azeredo’s medical and ethnographic journey in Angola resulted from an Enlightenment-era effort by the Portuguese authorities to gather medical information throughout the Lusophone world in an attempt to improve health conditions in overseas possessions and, consequently, support the colonial enterprise. By the late eighteenth century, Angola was known as the ‘white men’s grave’ due to the high number of casualties among European settlers, exiles, and administrative and military personnel, as well as slave traders in search of quick enrichment.1 Azeredo