ABSTRACT
The most intense period of ‘witch-hunting’ in Portugal (c. 1715-60) corresponds exactly with the period in which Portuguese physicians and surgeons were becoming more aware of rational scientific medical techniques being developed outside of Portugal.2 The period also coincides with a time in which licensed medical professionals had become firmly ensconced in the ranks of the Holy Office in substantial numbers – particularly influential physicians and surgeons in Coimbra, the medieval university town that was home to Portugal’s only faculty of medicine.3 These circumstances are not mere coincidence.
