The origin of The Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene and its historical context

LETTER TO THE EDITORS

The origin of The Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene and its historical context*

André Augusto Anderson Seixas^I; André Mota^II; Monica L. Zilbreman^III

^IPós graduando do Departamento de Psiquiatria da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP).

^IIDoutor. Professor de Pós-Graduação, Departamento de Medicina Preventiva, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP.

^IIIDoutora. Professora de Pós-Graduação, Departamento de Psiquiatria, FMUSP.

Correspondence

Dear Editors,

In 1857, Morel launched the concept of degeneration. The prevailing ideology was the Positivism, characterized by ideals of modernity, order, progress, and rationality. Psychiatrists asserted not only that mental illnesses had biological and genetic components but also that they would get worse as they passed from generation to generation, causing progressive degeneration within family trees and the population as a whole.¹ For them, degeneracy was more than an individual disease: it was a social menace. The idea of degeneration began to bolster social policies such as sterilization, euthanasia, and persecution of "degenerate" people.¹

The influence of mental hygiene was especially important. It added the notion of a social origin of madness to the existing idea of a hereditary basis to mental illness. Alcoholism, extreme poverty, ignorance² and religiosity³ started to be regarded as possible triggers of madness.^2,3 Meanwhile, Brazil underwent major changes and faced serious social challenges. Slavery had been abolished in 1888, and the Republic had been declared in 1889. There was a significant flow of immigrants into the country. Uncontrolled urbanization was intensified, causing serious social and sanitary problems.⁴ In the 3rd decade of the past century, a political state called 'Estado Novo' took place in Brazil, bearing anti-liberal ideas and repressive attitudes. A new constitution was adopted, and some of its articles discussed immigration policies that determined the maximum number of people from each ethnic group that would be allowed into the country. In this context, the movement of mental hygiene came out with the creation of the Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene. This was founded in Rio de Janeiro, in 1923, by psychiatrist Gustavo Riedel. Its primary objective was to improve the assistance of the mentally ill, by ensuring the modernization of psychiatric care.⁵

The League was a civil entity, publicly recognized with federal grants, and composed of the most important Brazilian psychiatrists. From 1923 to 1925, the League followed Riedel's orientation. After 1926, influenced by the political context and the close contact with German, French and North American ideas, the League's directors changed its orientation and a clear attempt to "normalize" the population became the principal object of the physicians, in their attempts to inhibit the mentally handicapped.⁵ The principles of eugenics and mental hygiene encouraged psychiatrists who intended to collaborate in creating a prosperous, modern and healthier nation.⁴

"We want physically and mentally strong people [ ]. We must promote eugenics in the Brazilians, select the Aryan type who seeks us, escape infiltration of new doses of Mongolic blood [ ]".⁴

Besides emphasizing the importance of degeneration ideas in the development of the Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene, we would like to draw attention to the historical context surrounding its birth and the influence of eugenic concepts on our conceptualization of mental illness and how this modeled our current ideas.

References

• 1. Shorter E. A History of Psychiatry: from the era of the Asylum to the age of Prozac. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 1997.
• 2. Huertas R. Madness and degeneration, Part I. From fallen angel' to mentally ill. Hist Psychiatry. 1992;3(12):391-411.
• 3. Moreira-Almeida A, Neto FL, Koenig HG. Religiousness and mental health: a review. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2006;28(3):242-50.
• 4. Moreira-Almeida A, Silva de Almeida AA, Neto FL. History of "Spiritist madness" in Brazil. Hist Psychiatry. 2005;16(61 Pt 1):5-25.
• 5. Costa JF. História da Psiquiatria no Brasil. 5Ş ed. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond; 2007.

*

Os achados preliminares foram apresentados no XIV Congresso Mundial de Psiquiatria, realizado em Setembro de 2008 em Praga, República Tcheca.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 Aug 2009
• Date of issue
  2009