MEDICAL WRITINGS ON CHILDHOOD IN BRAZIL (1832-1882)

Abstract

In 19th century Brazil, and more prominently in Rio de Janeiro, doctors and medical students produced a series of works that aimed to disseminate academic knowledge about diseases, treatments, nutrition and child hygiene. According to these writings, a national medical science was under construction, concerned with moralizing daily practices that concerned families: childbirth, hygiene, food, cleaning of private environments, among others. Based on a broader movement of primacy of fragile beings in Portuguese medicine in the 18th century, and later in Brazil, a proposal of this article is to map which understandings were conveyed about child treatment in the first fifty years of the Faculty of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro, with emphasis on two aspects that were widely disseminated in the medical theses of the period: prevention and medication.

Keywords: Medicine. Children. Health. Prevention. Medication.