Historical Archives of Goa Medical Licensing Database, 1596-1748

The Historical Archives of Goa Medical Licensing Database, 1596-1748 is a database of medical licensing records issued in Goa, the capital of the Portuguese Estado da Índia during the first several centuries of colonial rule. The database comprises 1,141 unique medical licensing documents containing mentions of 1,239 medical practitioners. All archival documents cited in the database come from records held in the Historical Archives of Goa (HAG), the state archive of Goa based in Panaji. The archive, which was founded in 1595 under Viceroy Matias de Albuquerque (1547-1609) and the first appointed archivist and chronicler, Diogo de Couto (1542/43-1616), contains an invaluable collection of municipal records from the Senado de Goa or Goan Municipal Council, including thousands of medical licensing records. The database described here contains only records from the first 150 years of extant medical licensing records, leaving space for future researchers to expand and improve the database to include later records. (2022-04)