The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to point out the central and enduring role played by medical-hygienist notations and texts and by the sanitarian movement in Brazil, between 1900 and 1930, in the reconstruction of national identity on the basis of the identification of disease as a distinctive element in the condition of being Brazilian; and second, to underscore their marked presence in the fundamental texts of the so-called phase of institutionalization of the social sciences in Brazil, which witnessed the creation of university programs in sociology and anthropology.
Public Health; Social Sciences; Hygienism; Medical Sanitarian Discourse