Recording Maladies and Remedies: Isabelo de los Reyes and Folk Medicine in Late Nineteenth Century Philippines

Renowned as the pioneering figure of Philippine folklore studies, Isabelo de los Reyes exhaustively documented and wrote about the Filipino people’s customs and ways of life, including popular knowledge about health and medicine. Considerably his magnum opus, Isabelo’s El Folk-Lore Filipino (1889–90) houses an abundance of folkloric notes relating to Philippine medicine, exhibiting the wide ranging varieties of folk medical knowledge from the natural to the supernatural. Despite this, numerous scholarly engagements with Isabelo’s intellectual endeavors have yet to carefully delve into the many mentions of medical knowledge present within his works on folklore. In response, this essay explores El Folk-Lore Filipino as an overlooked archive of Philippine folk medicine, covering folk medical knowledge existing by the late nineteenth century. This essay also attempts to locate El Folk-Lore Filipino within the rising professional medical community at the time, particularly the reception of Isabelo’s work on folk medicine. Against a backdrop of colonial rule, Isabelo’s keen attention to medicine in his research not only fulfilled his proposed understanding of folklore, but also contributed to his aspirations toward the development of the Filipino people’s conditions at the time.