This article discusses the book entitled Esboço de Psiquiatria Forense [Outline of Forensic Psychiatry] (1904), by Francisco Franco da Rocha (1864-1933). This book was one of the earliest Brazilian psychiatric publications dedicated to forensic psychiatry, and presents an extensive classification of mental diseases as proposed by the author himself, based on the classifications of Teixeira Brandão, Schüle and Krafft-Ebing. The book was illustrated with examples from Franco da Rocha's personal clinical experience at the Juqueri Asylum, directed by him from 1898 to 1923 and which now bears his name. His theoretical perspective is a diffuse organicism proper to believers in the theory of degeneration. As an expert in legal matters, he posited the need for psychiatrists to care for the defense of society against dangerous mentally alienated persons.
Forensic psychiatry; psychopathology; degeneration; social defense; Franco da Rocha; Juqueri Asylum