Entre a ciência e a saúde pública: a construção do médico paraibano como reformador social (1911-1929).

Abstract

The present paper is about representations from Paraiba‟s society formed by doctors who worked in this state between 1911 and 1929. Such representations were shown through media posts, lectures and conferences in public places (posted by local newspapers) and built an image of an “ill” society, which “needed medical care”. Analyzing these medical epresentations, we wrote a parallel about the rising of Paraiba‟s doctor as a “science man” and a “social reformer”. We interpreted that the rising of this medical identity and also the constitution of a protective and pedagogical social medicine at the same moment in Paraiba contributed to improve its social legitimacy and professional institutionalization to higher levels. In order to write this paper we analyzed newspapers and magazines from the period, such as A União, A Imprensa and Gazeta do Sertão, as well as Era Nova Magazine. Moreover, we analyzed official documents, mainly the annual messages from Paraiba‟presidents to the state legislature power. The representations about medicine, illnesses and health, which were transmitted in Paraiba by these means of communication, were analyzed through the theoretical reading of New Cultural History, mainly the work of Roger Chartier,an author that we approached because of his concepts of representation, reading and appropriation. Furthermore, we read Michael Foucault disserting about power relations and the theoretical statements of Sandra Jatahy Pesavento about sensibilities. This paper links the field of health history and the illnesses that discuss this theme through the sociocultural point of view to achieve the symbolic and social dimensions related to historical experiences of illness and medicalization.