Works by João Curvo Semedo (1635-1719) and Francisco Suárez de Rivera (c. 1680-1754) attest that the Iberian world participated in the eighteenth-century enterprise of seeking explanations and formulas for scurvy. For instance, in his Manifestación de Cien Secretos del Doctor Juan Curvo Semmedo, Suárez de Rivera contends that there are two kinds of scurvy: a “hot” brand, generated by an “acrid, colliquative toxic”, and a “cold” one, brought about by an “acid” ferment. Likewise, the Spanish physician recommends caution when using “hot, or acrid, antiscorbutics, like cochlearia”, as “they are always harmful to bodies of hot, sulfuric temperament”.

In other words, Suárez de Rivera appears to share with British medical thinkers such as John Woodall (1570-1643), Edward Strother (1675-1737), and John Quincy (?-1722) the belief in the existence of two forms of scurvy, each demanding a distinct therapy. According to Elwyn Hughes, held to be “hot” and “alkaline”, “sea scurvy” was treated with “cooling” foods and medicine, while “land scurvy”, characterized as “cold” and “acid”, required “hot” antiscorbutic herbs. Interestingly enough, citrus fruits, “the proven remedy for sea scurvy, did not figure prominently in the therapy advocated for ‘land scurvy’”. Treatment of the latter “almost invariably included at least one preparation made from […] ‘antiscorbutic’ plants.” These “usually included at least two of what became an established triumvirate, namely, in modern terminology, Cochlearia officinalis (scurvy grass), Veronica beccabunga (brooklime), and Nasturtium officinale (water cress).”

As shall be detailed in this paper, seventeen-hundred Iberian physicians and, as well as Portugal-born licensed surgeons residing temporarily or definitively in the colony of Brazil, advocated a fourth antiscorbutic herb. Called “mastuerzo” by Suárez de Rivera, this plant seems to be Lepidium sativum – nowadays belonging to the Brassicaceae family, together with Cochlearia officinalis and Nasturtium officinale. The surgeon Luis Gomes Ferreira, who after returning to Portugal for good in 1731 wrote the medical handbook Erario Mineral, reports that such herb was named “mastruços” in Portuguese, and that this, or a similar cress-looking vegetable, was known elsewhere in Brazil as “herva de Santa Maria”. Thus, Luso-Brazilian antiscorbutics may have included from the start today’s Chenopodium ambrosioides, which, presently, is one of many other popularly known “mastruços” in Brazil.