A Revista da Associação Piauiense de Medicina e o processo de constituição da autoridade médica em Teresina (1939-1944)

Abstract

The research aimed to analyze the medical knowledge disseminated by the professional medical sector through the Revista da Associação Piauiense de Medicina (RAPM), published in Teresina, capital of the state of Piauí, between 1939 and 1944. As a professional category that became increasingly prominent in Brazil, physicians began to integrate the field of scientific rationality, working alongside public authorities to promote health and, consequently, manage the productive efficiency of individuals within the broader project of building a developed nation. In order to safeguard public health, rules were established regarding ways of living that directly shaped daily life, such as food, housing, clothing, and sleep. Nothing aligned more coherently with this framework than the expansion of medical management across both public and private spaces.In Piauí, this unfolded in a context marked by the institutionalization of public health, the expanding presence and activity of physicians, and the establishment of the authority of scientific knowledge. Medical periodicals assumed a strategic role in the efforts toward professionalization and the scientific and social consolidation of medicine. Functioning as a field of legitimation shaped by professional disputes, medical journals dedicated themselves to compiling original texts, reproducing correspondence exchanged among physicians, and publicizing the activities of medical academies. The RAPM signaled the creation of a local institution of knowledge, featuring articles addressing topics such as epidemics and endemics affecting the population of Piauí, high mortality rates, problems in public health provision, conference papers, pharmaceutical advertisements, institutional bylaws, and discussions on medical advances developed within the academic community.The primary source used in the study was the Revista da Associação Piauiense de Medicina, with its various issues published during the selected period, analyzed in dialogue with a bibliography including authors such as Joseanne Marinho (2018), Valtéria Alvarenga (2013), Gilberto Hochman (2013), Ana Karoline Nery (2021), and Lívia Moraes (2014). In light of this, the emergence of this periodical is linked to the historical factors that shaped the period under examination, such as state intervention in local health matters—where the government assumed responsibility for providing this social right to the population—as well as the growing presence of physicians in public institutions and political positions. This constellation of factors contributed to the process of legitimizing medical knowledge and practices in Piauí.