A morte sob os ditames da ciência: a medicalização dos mortos e as políticas higienistas voltadas para a morbiletalidade - São Luís (1900-1904)

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the social control exercised by the medicai discourse and policies hygienists before the dead bodies in the urban center of São Luís - MA, between the years 1900-1904. From a rearrangement of the urban center ludovicense, we present the unsanitary conditions prevalent in this context and the emergence of discourses related to Social Medicine aimed combat epidemics of smallpox and mainly the bubonic plague that stood out. We identified the speech as Republican civilizing diffusion mechanism model medicalized death, with emphasis on combating contagious diseases through bodies victimized by diseases. We analyze the way in which medicai discourse and policies hygienists appropriated the dead bodies, based on principies related to the current Public Health prioritizing the health of the living, but forbade practices approach between living and dead. We emphasize the battlefront to the bubonic plague, under the administration of medicai Victor Paulo Godinho and their impacts for the dissemination of the model medicalized death. Right now, we analyze also the establishment of procedures, new laws and new living spaces between living and dead in that society. These elements were analyzed in the light of Cultural History, theoretical dimension that recognizes the importance of social representations, while construction of meaning, to understand a given historical moment.