from its first 1707 edition, to the updated and reformed version, being published to this day by portuguese publisher leilo irmão, the book and its collection of facts, myths and commonly held beliefs, make it extremely popular not only in carioca folkloric tradition, but across the entirety of brazil.

brazilian folk medicine is a union of three differing folkloric medicinal traditions: the amerindian, the african and the european. together, they comprise in brazil the three branches of any folk healing tradition - the flora, the fauna and the spiritual.