Abstract
In 1875 Bahia, medicine and evolutionism were used by the physician, journalist, and republican militant Domingos Guedes Cabral as ideological weapons to propose a radical program of social reforms in Brazil in the areas of education, marriage control, medical care to the alienated, changes in the penal system, etc., all of which were based on the scientific knowledge of that time. Among the social ideas of Guedes Cabral, the question of race will be the main focus of this analysis. In this sense, Domingos Guedes Cabral is a particularly significant example for understanding the initial steps in the peculiar alliance between evolutionism, medicine, and scientific racism in Brazil since the 1870s, when Darwinism first arrived in the country.
scientific racism; evolutionism; social medicine; Bahia School of Medicine; Domingos Guedes Cabral (1852-1883)