The article shows the important role that health manuals had in the reading of the illustrated books and the different discussions that were presented around the concept of public health and hygiene and the uses implemented during the smallpox epidemics of 1785 and 1802. It is put in I declare its implementation to feed the arguments of the authorities and the elite of Nueva Granada in favor of the establishment of certain public health measures; to remedy the difficulties caused by the lack of doctors or the high cost of their fees, to identify the virtues of some medicinal plants existing in these lands and thus put them at the service of the sick, and to support forms of self-medication among the enlightened sectors of the society.