In the heart of Brazil, a healthy capital: the participation of doctors and sanitarists in the construction of Brasília (1956-1960)

Abstracts

Projetada como expressão do arrojo e da modernidade de uma época, Brasília não poderia prescindir de um planejamento que considerasse as condições do sítio onde seria instalada, no interior do país. Construída em região historicamente associada ao isolamento, à pobreza e a doenças, a nova capital demandou a participação de médicos e sanitaristas desde o início das obras, visando garantir condições de salubridade. Ao vislumbrar a oportunidade de ampliar seu espaço de atuação, até então restrito ao interior, os médicos goianos se destacaram nesse processo, do qual se ressaltam os anseios da classe manifestados no periódico editado por sua associação e sua ampla mobilidade e atualização, a contrariar concepções comuns acerca dos médicos do interior.

história da medicina; medicina goiana; Brasil Central; Brasília

DOSSIER SANITARISM AND INTERPRETATIONS OF BRAZIL

ANALYSIS

In the heart of Brazil, a healthy capital - the participation of doctors and sanitarists in the construction of Brasília (1956-1960)

Tamara Rangel Vieira

Doctoral candidate in the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fundação Oswaldo Cruz Post-Graduate Program. Rua Visconde de Ouro Preto, 71/202. 22250-180 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brasil. [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

Projected as an expression of the daring and modernity of an age, Brasília could not overlook planning that considered the conditions where it would be located in the interior of Brazil. Constructed in a region historically associated with isolation, poverty and diseases, the new capital required the participation of doctors and sanitarists from the very beginning of construction to ensure healthy conditions. Seeing the opportunity to expand their sphere of action, until then restricted to the interior, doctors from Goiás stood out in this process, highlighted by concerns of the profession manifested in the periodical published by its association and their extensive mobility and modern practice, contradicting the common conceptions regarding doctors in the interior.

Keywords: History of medicine; Goian medicine; Central Brazil; Brasília.

On the national political scene, the 1950's were marked by the troubled ascension of Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira to the Presidency of the Republic. Placing maximum emphasis on "50 years of progress in five years of government", the president-elect seized upon a program of goals to modernize Brazil through accelerating and intensifying development. Only included later in his program, the construction of Brasília became the great symbol of his government. In a context motivated by ideas of modernization, industrialization and urbanization, at the peak of developmentism and 'sanitary optimism', the president decided to carry out the constitutional precept so often put off and build a new federal capital in the interior of Brazil in a region historically associated with backwardness, isolation, poverty and disease.

To carry out this task, he relied upon the work of doctors and sanitarists responsible for sanitation in the region and medical care for the recently arrived workers, whose coming threatened to bring many diseases with them. Constructed to symbolize the economic and social leap forward taken by the country, Brasília could not accept the threat of any illness, since this could undermine the desire that it be recognized, above all, as a modern capital.

I highlight in this article the role of Goian doctors in maintaining a healthy environ-ment at the location where the new city was being built, cooperating willingly in the work involved in transferring the federal capital. The emphasis placed here on the participation of Goiás in achieving this goal is due to its presence throughout the entire process of transferring the capital ever since the start of the 20th century. Although achievement of this idea appears as the realization of a national imperative, which for centuries had required locating the capital of Brazil in the heart of Brazil, it is possible to perceive in the sources, the active role of the regional Goian elite in bringing the new federal capital to the Central Plateau of Goiás - the region defined by the Cruls Commission since the end of the 19th century - whether organizing a periodical that propagandized the benefits of the region or establishing decrees that would facilitate the change.

Following the movements of the Goian elites, especially the doctors, I think it is possible to understand the very special way in which they gave their support to the enterprise. Highlighting the regional nature of a national project, this article emphasizes the impact the construction of Brasília had on the configuration of a local medical identity, which would take advantage of the benefits generated by moving the capital to attain prominence within the heart of the medical profession. The intense activity in the country's interior areas, contradicting the idea that the doctors of these regions would be backward and subjected to the isolation imposed by the environment, brings up a different conception of the sertão [Brazil's dry interior highlands], one capable of redefining the idea of Brazil as an 'immense hospital' using other bases.

Despite the slice in time favored here, the representations regarding the interior of Brazil should be put into historical perspective, emphasizing those related to transferring the capital from the coast to the sertão. Thus, the first part of this article synthesizes the first manifestations regarding the transfer of the capital to the interior during the period that extends from the end of the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th, based on documents such as a pamphlet produced by Francisco Varnhagen and the reports put out by the Cruls Commission and sanitarist doctors Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna.

Analyzing the sources allows us to perceive the different views regarding the sertões [plural of sertão] of Brazil, influenced based on the medical conceptions of each period, as well as to relate them to the transition periods that the question of transferring the capital passed through until the 1930s. We noted the configuration of a dichotomy between the coast and the interior and a concern with the salubrity and climate of the Central Plateau, which will persist in the studies undertaken in the region by the commissions organized in the 1940s and 1950s, as shown by the reports and articles of the periodicals in which the work of these commissions were debated. The active participation of the Goians in propaganda favorable to the change is also prominent, reflected in the pages of the periodical Informação Goiana, and their mobilization vis-à-vis politicians and members of the study commissions to convince them of the benefits to be forthcoming for the nation if the capital were moved to that region, rather than the Mineiro Triangle.

In the second section of this article, I emphasize, based on their reports, the activities of the study commissions organized by the federal government in the 1950s prior to the construction of Brasília. In them, once again, the importance attributed to salubrity and the climate was observed, as well as the efforts of the Goians to bring the capital to the Goian Central Plateau. The significance of constructing Brasília during the government of Juscelino Kubitschek seems associated with the relationships developed between the developmentalist rhetoric and the fight against 'mass diseases', synthesized in his Public Health Program of 1995 and the creation, in 1956, of a department exclusively to treat rural epidemics.

The last section of this study deals with the role of doctors and sanitarists during construction of the capital. Based on oral testimony and articles in the Revista Goiana de Medicina, the intent is to evaluate the effective participation, in this stage, of the profession-als who, affiliated with the Ministry of Health, arrived from the interior attracted by the opportunities opened by the building of the future city. The emphasis reverts to the work they developed, the relationships between the health institutions that operated there, the main diseases that afflicted the candangos [as workers, being mostly from Goiás, Minas Gerais and the Norheast, who participated in the construction of Brasília were called], their impressions of the interior of Brazil and the new capital and what it represented both for that portion of the country and local medicine. Synthesizing, the importance of mobilizing the Goian medical elite on behalf of realizing the transfer of the federal capital is highlighted, as well as its consequences for Goian medical circles themselves.

Central Brazil in historical perspective: from an impressionist picture to a black and white image

In the beginning there was the wilderness

There were ancient, untroubled solitudes.

The high plateau, the uninhabited infinity

In the beginning there were the dry lands:

The blue sky, the pungent red earthAnd the sad green of the plains.

There were ancient solitudes bathed

With gentle innocent rivers

Among the chiseled forests

There was no one.

(Vinícius de Moraes and Antônio Carlos Jobim, Brasília, Sinfonia da Alvorada¹

The text inserted above comprises the beginning of the Sinfonia da Alvorada [Alvorada Symphony], composed to honor the new federal capital, inaugurated on April 21, 1960. As the verses suggest, Brasília is considered a 'flower in the desert', a common theme in the words of many authors, paraphrasing the expression used by Roland Corbisier (1960) in Brasília e o desenvolvimento nacional, a very well known text, in which the intellectual relates the construction of the new capital to a new drive for development in Brazil. An undertaking constructed in the middle of the monotonous nature of the plains, in a region forgotten by Brazilians, in a place where 'there was no one'. That image of Central Brazil, embedded in the national imagination for centuries, would function as a motivating and galvanizing element of forces on behalf of realizing the capital transfer (or mudancista, as it was known) project, appearing at various times in the speeches of Juscelino Kubitschek himself. Unlike the coast, the interior of Brazil was considered an inhospitable, isolated region consisting of a landscape that contrasted with the modern urban reality of the coastal cities. As a result, for those who were in favor of the idea, moving the capital to the interior became essential and its location in the central region of Brazil would function as a great magnet for attracting and settling people, would promote populating the 'desert' and, consequently, would guarantee the much-heralded national integration.

As we get closer to this region of Brazil and distance ourselves in time, the image of isolation and emptiness, associated with the most central part of the country in the 1950s, takes on other multiple meanings. Depending on the period analyzed, the interior of the country ranges from being a 'paradise', a region where everything was better and abundant, to an 'inferno', characterized by backwardness, misery and countless diseases. These different conceptions, which left their mark on the representations of Central Brazil, also interfered with carrying out the mudancista enterprise that began to appear in government plans following the Constitution of 1891. Thereafter, the project would pass through various transition periods and, depending on the age, was seen to be promising, or unfeasible or simply ignored. The theme of national integration was, nevertheless, always mobilized when the government was disposed to take up the idea again, and the organization of study commissions represented the first step in this direction.

Between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th, four commissions were organized by the government to develop studies on the conditions of the Planalto Central and select, given its immensity, the most adequate location for the new capital. Among the points it was important to analyze, two issues were never left off the agenda of concerns: the region's healthiness and climate. The importance of these factors, priority conditions to be satisfied for the region chosen, is even demonstrated by its inclusion in article 1 of law 1803, promulgated by president Getúlio Vargas in 1953. According to this law, which authorized the executive power to conduct definitive studies to locate the new capital, some points would have to be taken into consideration, with the region's sanitary and climatic conditions being at the top of the list. This type of concern demanded that the commissions include professionals who could help in this effort, such as doctors, sanitarists, hygienists, climatologists and geographers, to whom would fall the responsibility of finding a location that was both disease free and climatically agreeable.

The concern with climate and healthiness, present at the time of constructing Brasília, is closely related to aspects that caught the attention of those who first visited the Planalto Central and suggested it as the most adequate location for the new capital even back in the 19th century. Their views were based on an outlook that related the ideas of 'civilization' - a condition that Brazil should strive for - to those of hygiene and healthiness, which, in turn, were associated with climatic conditions. Such is the case, for example, of Francisco Adolfo Varnhagen, who traveled to the interior of Brazil and left his impressions recorded in 'A questão da capital: marítima ou no interior?', published in 1877, and the impressions of the hygienist doctor on the Comissão Exploradora do Planalto Central do Brasil [Central Plateau of Brazil Exploratory Commission]², Antonio Martins de Azevedo Pimentel, recorded in the Cruls Report published in 1894. Although these documents present aspects characteristic of each period, both fit within the movement to enhance the image of Brazil's interior. Praising the countless qualities of the country's sertões - an exuberant nature, pleasant climate and a healthy and almost uninhabited environment - constitutes, it could be said, the trademark of the reports and demonstrates the involvement of their authors in a specific national project: to demonstrate the viability of building a civilization in the tropics. Thus, based on assertions of a medical-sanitarist order, founded mainly on the medical-environmentalist paradigm³, the appeal of the need to transfer the capital gained currency, associating at once the need to integrate these regions into the country and the search for a more 'civilized' image as keys to the effective consolidation of national unity (Varnhagen, 1877; Rosas, 1996; Cruls, 2003).

The first indicator of a change in the optimistic image of the Brazilian sertões came with the publication in 1902 of the work Os sertões (Cunha, 1997). Euclides da Cunha's different perception of the region, where he revealed the precarious conditions, isolation and abandonment in which its population lived, stimulated new thinking about Brazilian society and contributed to give a different hue to the scenario disseminated by Varnhagen and the Cruls Commission (Oliveira, 2002; Lima, 1999). Nevertheless, the greatest contrast would be felt after publication of the report written by medical sanitarists Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna on the occasion of their visit to the interior of Brazil in 1912 (Neiva, Penna, 1999; Lima, 2003; Lima, Hochman, 1996, 2000, 2004).

Under the auspices of the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz and the Inspetoria de Obras Contra as Secas [Inspectorship of Anti-Drought Works], Neiva and Penna set out for locations in the north of Bahia, the southwest of Pernambuco, the south of Piauí and the north to south of Goiás to study them and assess the potential for the federal government to construct dams. Their travel impressions were related in a report now considered as "one of the most expressive and influential documents in the genesis of social imagination regarding Brazil" (Lima, 2003, p.212).

Among the aspects that most contrasted with the impressions previously left by Varnhagen and the Cruls Commission, those related to the pathologies found and the misery in which the people lived stand out. Contrary to the positive image that existed up to then, Neiva and Penna presented to Brazilians a sertão completely abandoned by public authorities, isolated from the coast and devastated by poverty and countless diseases. The impact of its publication on public opinion, within the context of the expectations generated by the First World War (1914-1918), mobilized intellectuals and politicians to think about and find a solution to that state of affairs.⁴ Medical sanitarist Miguel Pereira was the author of one of the most outstanding images of this period: "outside of Rio or São Paulo, more or less sanitized, and some other cities where precaution takes care of hygiene, Brazil is still an immense hospital" (Pereira, 1922, p.7). The rhetorical force of this sentence, given in a speech, reverberated nationally and transcended generations, remaining in the national imagination for a long time, to the point where it even could be identified in the context of the construction of Brasília in the 1950s.⁵

With negative consequences for the project of moving the federal capital to the interior, the Neiva and Penna report was the target of criticism, especially by Goians, who felt themselves wronged by the fatalistic impressions expressed in the document. Unhappy with the image with which they were strongly associated, they initiated a campaign on behalf of implementing the constitutional precept that demanded moving the capital. The organization of the medical-scientific periodical Informação Goiana⁶, which began to circulate in 1917, can be considered one of the most effective measures taken by the Goians in favor of the move. The periodical's main objective was disseminating the economic potentials of Planalto Central and, with it, to convince people regarding the benefits of transferring the capital to the region.⁷ In the articles published up to 1935, the natural resources of Goiás, its climate and the variety of its flora and fauna were praised. Some of the information contained in the sanitarists' report was also denied, such as those that referred to droughts and diseases in the region, as well as contesting the statement that the inhab-itants of the sertão would be a "useless race". They expected the authors of the articles to refute the image that had become generalized and make the region and its riches better known. According to Dominichi Miranda de Sá, in an article in this same supplement ("Interpreting Brazil as afflicted by disease and by the spirit of routine: the repercussion of Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna's medical report (1917-1935)"), the Informação Goiana was the "medical defense" of the Planalto Central, since it contributed "put the question of transferring the federal capital to the Goiás sertão back on the Brazilian political agenda ...".

Nevertheless, during the period in which the periodical circulated, few measures were taken by the government to accomplish the undertaking. Despite the mobilization, mainly of the Goians, through not only this publication but also the projects presented by the deputies⁸, almost nothing was done, except the laying of a cornerstone for the future federal capital on the Planalto Central in 1922. Until the promulgation of the 1934 Con-stitution of Brazil, much was discussed, even when its draft was being prepared. Some deputies tried to add an amendment to it defining the location of the new capital as determined by the Cruls Commission and to include in future budgets an amount to cover the necessary expenses for effecting this measure. Nevertheless, nothing came of it.

The Constitution of 1937, decreed with the instauration of the Estado Novo (the name given to the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship government), was not explicit regarding the mudancista question. The Getúlio Vargas government ended without any measure being taken, despite the rhetoric "March to the West". Only in the 1940s, during the re-democratization of Brazil, did the question re-emerge again. Manifestations were made in the National Constituent Assembly and the press regarding the perennially postponed constitutional precept, with opinions differing regarding the transitional nature of the change and where the capital should be moved (Silveira, 1957; Kubitschek, 2006).

Alternatives to the Cruls Commission were discussed, which varied between locating the capital in the Triângulo Mineiro and the recently inaugurated capital of Goiás, Goiânia. It is worth highlighting the participation of the then deputy Juscelino Kubitschek in the debate, as well as that of other personages who would become important during the construction of Brasília, such as Lucas Lopes and Israel Pinheiro (Couto, 2006; Bojunga, 2001; Silveira, 1957). As a result of these discussions, the Planalto Central remained in the Constitution of 1946 as a favored region for future demarcation work, as well as the promise that the president would appoint a commission of technicians within sixty days to proceed with studies on locating the new capital (Brasil, 1946).

As defined in the Constitution of 1946, two months after its passage president Eurico Gaspar Dutra appointed the Comissão de Estudos Para a Localização da Nova Capital [Study Commission for Location of the New Capital], installed that November. Headed by general Djalma Poli Coelho, the commission was comprised of 12 technicians, including engineers, agronomists, geologists, hygienists, doctors and military personnel, who were divided between office and field work.⁹

Both in the third volume of the technical report of the new commission and a number of articles published in magazines such as Boletim Geográfico and Revista Brasileira de Geografia, not only can the continuity of a dualistic image of the nation be observed - which, according to defenders of moving the capital, only its transfer could overcome - but also the persistence of aspects related to the health and climate of the regions as relevant criteria in the choice of the best site for the new capital. Thus, topographical and climatic aspects appear as those having the greatest weight, since, once the location was chosen, it would be "impossible to remedy any of its defects in the future" (Guimarães, 1949, p.510). The region must count on vast and level land, only slightly inclined to facilitate the drainage of water and the construction of a sewage network, as well as to break the monotony of the landscape. The climate must be "one that provides comfortable conditions for the human organism, without excessive temperatures, too much humidity and violent winds. It must ensure good health conditions, it being extremely important that the zone be malaria free ..." (p.509). An attractive landscape was also considered relevant, due to its "repercussions on the psychology of the inhabitants", since, after all, it meant "transferring the capital from one of the most beautiful sites in the world, Rio de Janeiro, and a location lacking in attractions will not be easily accepted by public opin-ion ..." (p.511). Other aspects were taken into consideration, such as the presence of abundant water and land propitious for agriculture, but they were of less relevance in the choice, since these resources could be found near the city.

The results of the commission's studies divided its members into those who defended locating the new capital in the geometric center of the country (closer to the rectangle delineated by Cruls) and those who considered it better to move the capital to the demographic center of Brazil (the Triângulo Mineiro). Interested in transferring the capital to the location defined by the Cruls Commission, Goians included in their own state constitution a provision relative to the mudancista cause.¹⁰ The deputies from Goiás undertook to convince their peers that the best solution for the country would be transferring the federal capital to their state, defending it with the successful example of the recently inaugurated state capital (Silveira, 1957). On the study commission, they relied upon the representation of engineer Jerônimo Coimbra Bueno, elected governor of Goiás in 1947 - a fact that generated a certain polemic within the heart of the commission, since the other members feared the partiality of his opinions (Brasil, 1948).

In July 1948 a majority vote decided that the federal capital should be located in the geometric center of Brazil, a region of some 78,000km², virtually uninhabited and unexplored, comprised of eastern Goiás, bordering the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais, and encompassing, to the south and part of the west, the rectangle delineated by the Cruls Commission in 1892 and, to the north, the Chapada dos Veadeiros (Castro, 1948; see Figure 1). Nevertheless, the location of the new capital would be definitively known only after the studies developed by a new commission, organized in 1953.

Brazil is not only a hospital: the developmentalist rhetoric and the place of health in the construction of the new capital

The work of the commission instituted by the Dutra government unfolded within the post-World War II context, marked by the new possibilities offered by medical and scientific advances and generalization of the idea of development.

The relevance that sanitary activities and combating disease then acquired in Brazil meshed with thinking that would gain credence internationally during the war: the importance of health as a factor in development. In this conjuncture, insecticides, vaccines and antibiotics were among the products that contributed to the climate of 'sanitary optimism' that marked the period. Given the promising prospects of a solution to countless diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, two of the Brazilian government's major concerns, this climate reverberated throughout society (Lima, Hochman, Fonseca, 2005).

Since diseases appeared at the international level as major obstacles to promoting world development, their economic and social cost, their degree of interference in labor productivity and the causal relationships between disease and poverty were discussed. The creation in 1948 of an international organ to deal with sanitary problems - the World Health Organization - nicely underscores the moment when health assumed a prominent position in the world scenario. The relationship between health and development began to appear in international pronouncements and conferences, concluding that sanitary measures could contribute to leverage development. In the 1950s, this relationship reached its zenith, demanding effective actions of the Brazilian government in the fight against rural epidemics, considered responsible for the low productivity of workers in the interior and the country's slow growth (Kropf, 2006; Lima, Hochman, Fonseca, 2005; Moreira, 1998).

Thus, the association between health and development echoed in the Juscelino Kubits-chek government (1956-1960). In his "Programa de saúde pública" [Public Health Program], launched in 1955 during the election campaign, the strong association between combating mass diseases, the need to raise the living conditions of the rural worker, the economic uplifting of the interior and the developmentalist ideas of his proposal can be seen. The main topics considered dealt with rural epidemics (Chagas disease, malaria, verminosis, goiters, trachoma etc.), basic sanitation and food. Our attention is called to references to the work of sanitarists at the start of the 20th century and the constant refutation of Miguel Pereira's phrase regarding Brazil being an 'immense hospital' - already considered outdated:

When we look at our man in the interior, we should not see just a sick man. Diseases and sick people are not the only things found in Brazil's vast interior. Along side the large number of sick people, there is a large population of healthy, eager people, working productively and optimistically. Today, with transportation facilities, major highways and especially our very intense internal traffic, pessimistic or negativist attitudes regarding Brazil's future can no longer be tolerated. Only those who do not know Brazil, who live immersed in the cities, can doubt the Brazilian people... (Kubitschek, 1955, p.32).

We are no longer, this must be set to rights, the vast hospital of the phrase, made famous because it was true, taken from Miguel Pereira's clear sighted observation... (p.53).

The construction of Brasília is a good opportunity to perceive how the relationship between health and development is established. Although there is no explicit reference to the importance of hygienic and sanitary aspects in the urbanistic plan developed by Lúcio Costa (1991), he was clearly concerned with the welfare of the city's future inhabitants, who should enjoy a woody and healthy environment, with ample leisure spaces, safety and comfort. One can thus affirm that the modern project for the new federal capital, apart from the concern with the organization and planning of all components of a city projected for that purpose and the monumental aesthetics of its buildings, bore the imprint of expectations for a healthier life. If cities can be thought of as expressions of "stages of modernity", as Helena Bomeny (2002, p.210) suggests, Brasília, projected as an expression of the daring and modernity of an age, could not overlook planning that took into consideration local health conditions, mainly when its location in a region seen as inhospitable, isolated, backward and disease ridden is considered.

In fact, to carry out the undertaking, the new capital relied upon the active participation of doctors and sanitarists from the very start of construction. Responsible for maintaining local health and sanitary prevention and education activities, they arrived with the mission to prepare the region to become a symbol of a Brazil conscious of its riches and to combat the illnesses of its people. Hardly noticed by the historical studies recording the transfer of the federal capital, the sanitary aspect, together with the other projects (architectonic, urbanistic, educational etc.), also conformed to the idea, well disseminated by the Juscelino Kubitschek government, of a capital that would reflect a fully integrated, modern and developed nation. In this respect, the activities devoted to rural sanitation reverberated positively at the government level, favoring attaining its major goal, just as achieving the secular constitutional precept would accelerate development of the interior.

The final decision to move the federal capital to that specific region of the Planalto Central was, nevertheless, not the fruit of the Kubitschek government. It was due to the work developed by the final study commission instituted for that purpose in 1953 during the Getúlio Vargas government. The president of Comissão de Localização da Nova Capital Federal [New Federal Capital Location Commission]¹¹, as it became known, was the chief of the Military Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic, general Aguinaldo Caiado de Castro, and its studies had to be concluded within a maximum period of three years. Besides the priority conditions of climate and salubrity, the region must also satisfy other criteria: a readily available supply of water and electric energy, easy access to overland and air transportation, suitable topography, favorable soil for construction, the availability of construction materials, proximity to land for cultivation and, finally, an attractive landscape (Brasil, 1953). To assist the commission in its work, the American engineering firm Donald J. Belcher and Associates Incorporated was contracted, whose studies resulted in the indication of the five most suitable sites for construction of the new capital (Brasil, 1957; Silveira, 1957; Couto, 2006; Silva, 2004).

With the death of Getúlio Vargas in August 1954, João de Campos Café Filho appointed Marshall José Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque to replace general Caiado de Castro as president of the commission, some of whose members were also substituted.¹² After comparing the final report of the American firm and the impressions of Marshall José Pessoa, who had visited the region personally, the commission pondered the advantages and disadvantages of each of the sites, differentiated by colors to facilitate the studies. It decided on the chestnut colored site, with an area of 5,850km² (Silveira, 1957; Couto, 2006; Silva, 2004). Once the location had been defined that seemed to fill all of the pre-requisites stipulated in legislation, mainly those of a climatic and sanitary order, it had to be declared as eminent domain for subsequent expropriation and the start of work. This task was the responsibility of the then governor of Goiás, José Ludovico de Almeida, who, at the request of Marshall José Pessoa, issued a decree to that end on April 30, 1955.

At the end of December 1955, the commission that had been instituted during the Vargas government was transformed by presidential decree into the Comissão de Planejamento da Construção e da Mudança da Capital Federal [Commission for Planning the Construction and Move of the Federal Capital] (Brasil, 1955), and in June 1956 it was placed under the command of doctor Ernesto Silva¹³, former assistant of Marshall José Pessoa, who had resigned from the position. In charge of the work thereafter, the doctor's measures included the publication of the invitation to bid for the Brasília Pilot Plan and negotiations with the Departamento Nacional de Endemias Rurais [National Department of Rural Endemic Diseases] (DNERu), for which a sanitarist was designated to study the health conditions of the region and take other measures that became necessary, such as iodizing salt to prevent goiters, a very common disease in the region (Silva, 2004).

Less than a year after its creation, the commission was extinguished and a law sanctioned that authorized the executive power to constitute the Companhia Urbanizadora da Nova Capital do Brasil [Brazil's New Capital Urbanization Company] (Novacap), which would be responsible for planning and executing the services of locating, organizing and constructing the future federal capital (Brasil, 1956). The president of the new company, Israel Pinheiro, intending to decentralize the administration, distributed supervisory sectors among the board members Ernesto Silva, Bernardo Sayão and Íris Meinberg.

For the purposes of this article, it is important to highlight the activities of the Departamento de Assistência Social e Saúde [Department of Social Assistance and Health], under the command of Ernesto Silva. The organ consisted of the Novacap Health Department, led by doctor Jairo de Assis Almeida; a DNERu post, headed by doctor João Leão da Motta and an emergency treatment post, supervised by the Instituto de Aposentadorias e Pensões dos Industriários [Industry Worker Retirement and Pension Institute] (Iapi). Command of the emergency post was entrusted to a recently graduated doctor, Edson Porto - the first doctor to arrive in Brasília (Silveira, 1957; Couto, 2006; Silva, 2004; see Figure 2).

The construction of Brasília: the pioneers of dust in action

Born in Araguari, in the interior of Minas Gerais, Edson Porto arrived in Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s to study at the Faculdade Nacional de Medicina. After finishing his studies, he decided to return to the interior to look for new work opportunities. He decided on the city of Goiânia, which at the time was flourishing as a capital, and looked for a position at the Hospital Rassi, definitively linking his professional career with the history of Brasília, where he arrived on December 4, 1956 (Porto, 2006, tape 1, side A). This hospital, constructed by the brothers Alberto and Luiz Rassi, pursuant to a contract signed with Iapi, was responsible for providing the first medical services in Brasília and for setting up an emergency treatment post. Providing assistance in Brasília was conditioned, however, on a loan the hospital requested from Iapi to be able to conclude the construction, since it was only operating at half capacity because of financial problems (Rassi, 2006, tape 2, side B).

The difficulty in convincing hospital employees to remain in Brasília and, on the other hand, Edson Porto's interest in setting up an office in pediatrics led the doctor to offer the Rassi brothers a deal: he was prepared to remain in Brasília for the time needed, without rotating with other professionals, provided that, when he returned to Goiânia at the end of the construction work, his place to work in the hospital there was guaranteed. Initially the time stipulated for Porto to remain was three months. Nevertheless, the Iapi loan for the hospital construction work was not forthcoming in the period foreseen and Edson Porto, who had committed himself to remain in Brasília during construction, had to extend his stay a little longer at the construction site of the future federal capital (Porto, 2006, tape 1, side B).

At the medical post where they worked, a small wooden construction, Edson Porto and a male nurse were responsible for the initial treatment of workers, conducting the clinical examination that would enable the workers to register with Novacap and obtain a health card, without which they could not be hired by the construction companies. The exam checked blood pressure, the heart and if the patient had chronic or acute diseases. For more serious diseases or accidents, the government of Goiás provided an airplane to take the patient to the hospital in Goiânia (Porto, 2006, tape 1, side B). Edson Porto remained in charge of this clinical work until the Novacap health department was installed three months after his arrival.¹⁴ Thereafter, all those who arrived ready to work were vaccinated against smallpox, parathyroid fever and yellow fever and, if necessary, underwent laboratory investigations and exams at the Serviço de Tuberculose e de Lepra [Tuberculosis and Leprosy Service] (Silva, 2004).¹⁵

The number of workers multiplied daily at the work site. Upon arrival, before going to the health department, they were sent to the Centro de Assistência e Orientação Profissional [Professional Guidance and Assistance Center], where they underwent 'hygienization' (a shower, haircut and shave) together with the whole family. After the examinations and getting their health cards, they were taken to the police for registration and psychotechnical examination, the Instituto Nacional de Imigração e Colonização [National Institute of Immigration and Colonization] then placing them in their jobs (Brasília..., 1960).

The health department initiative in submitting all workers who arrived to a medical examination and conditioning their employment to obtaining a health card demonstrated the concern that these men might bring diseases with them to a region considered disease free. This assertion was recorded in the Revista Goiana de Medicina, in which, from the start of its circulation in 1955, were published not only the epidemiological inquiries conducted during the DNERu circumscription of Goiás, but also articles by doctors from the interior who wrote about, among other subjects, the sanitation of Brasília.

The creation of a magazine had been included in the plans of the Associação Médica de Goiás [Medical Association of Goiás] (AMG) ever since its foundation in 1950 by doctor Luiz Rassi, but was only achieved when its future editor, Joffre Marcondes de Rezende¹⁶ arrived in Goiânia in 1954. Rezende immediately offered to begin working on the production of a periodical affiliated with the association, whose members, without exception, favored the mudancista cause, seen as beneficial for the entire state (Rassi, 2006, tape 3, side B). This sentiment was reflected in the pages of the magazine, which published material by doctors (from Goiás) who were associated with it, as well as by doctors from other states, such as Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Nevertheless, given the fact that the former were in the majority, I consider the magazine as a vehicle for doctors of the Planalto Central and their optimism regarding the opportunities opened by interiorization of the capital.¹⁷

The objectives of the Revista Goiana de Medicina are found in the editorial of its first number, which announce the intent to use the magazine to establish a link with doctors from the interior of Goiás and their professional association. Through the publication in its sections of original and current works from all their clinics, the interchange with other sister magazines and divulging the work of illustrious doctors in other states, its editors sought to "constantly improve the standard of medicine practiced in Goiás, preparing the ground for our future Medical College..." (Editorial, 1955, p.1), a constant topic, in fact, in the periodical. Considered a pioneer work by the doctors who participated on it, the Revista was mainly focused on regional pathologies. Despite having little importance domestically, it did circulate internationally and represented an opportunity for doctors of the interior to publish their works, a number of these professionals achieving some exposure.¹⁸

Among the works published, the epidemiological inquiries conducted regarding where the new capital would be established are to be found - a burning issue for the doctors working in the Planalto Central who also wrote for the periodical. Since the DNERu had already begun to operate in the region and surrounding areas through its circumscription of Goiás¹⁹, with waves of migrants and workers, articles appeared in the magazine reporting on how the activities were progressing. For the most part, they were very technical reports involving statistics and tables dealing with countless variables, such as demographic density, climate, humidity, the pluviometric index, vegetation and the types of dwellings. These reports often denied the existence of any type of disease in the locale: even though the areas surrounding the region delineated were infested with maladies such as yellow fever and Chagas disease, the site of the new capital remained healthy (Carvalho, Verano, 1956; Carvalho, Castro, 1957).

The doctors were required to send any case of an infectious disease to the DNERu or the Novacap health department, the bodies responsible for guaranteeing the health of workers and regional salubrity. These bodies also developed sanitary education work in which their health concerns were transmitted to the workers, including lectures (Porto, 2006, tape 1, side B, tape 2, side A). The joint action in combating diseases demonstrates the good relationship the doctors working in Brasília had with each other, whether government or private employees. The cooperation of the doctors who first arrived at the construction site in the sanitary education work promoted by federal organs is a good example: the doctors produced posters with the photo of a kissing bug to warn workers, especially the new arrivals who had moved into shacks, regarding the dangers of infection from that insect, the transmitter of Chagas disease (Ribeiro, 1957).

Isaac Barreto Ribeiro was one of the doctors engaged in the task of sanitary education. Coming from Bahia, where he was born in 1924, his career was marked by his work in the interior of Brazil. A 1948 graduate of the Faculdade de Medicina de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, he then went to the cities of Rio Verde, Anápolis, Oruana and Ceres, where he remained until the construction of Brasília was announced (Ribeiro, 2006, tape 1, side A). His willingness to participate in the construction of a new city, added to the search for a less competitive professional field, led him to settle permanently in Brasília on December 31, 1956, when he arrived with his family at the work site (Ribeiro, 2006, tape 3, side A). Once established in the Cidade Livre²⁰, he began to receive patients in his surgical center, most of them workers building the new city. According to the doctor, victims of labor accidents, traumatisms or fractures due to falls came to the clinic, as well as many cases of verminosis and anemia. At times they also brought with them malaria or Chagas disease, but these were not autochthonal diseases, the doctor points out.

Some time later, Isaac Ribeiro would divide his work in the Cidade Livre clinic with the Hospital Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (HJKO), where he began to work following its inauguration on July 6, 1957 (Figure 3). The hospital replaced the small medical post in which Edson Porto had initiated his work in Brasília. Located next to the Núcleo Bandeirante, its function was to provide medical, surgical and dental assistance to civil servants, workers and other individuals (Silva, 2004, p.88). Constructed at the suggestion of Luiz Rassi, who traveled periodically to Brasília to monitor the medical assistance work for which his hospital was responsible, its official inauguration occurred with the performance of two surgical operations - one for a goiter and the other for a megasophagus - by Rassi himself. According to Edson Porto, the hospital was built of wood, with forty beds and basic medical sections: a surgical center, a maternity room, a laboratory and an emergency service. It also had a residential complex where the doctors lived with their families (Porto, 2006, tape 2, side A; see Figure 4). Appointed director of the HJKO, Rassi only remained in the position until January 1958, leaving it because the promised loan from Iapi to conclude the construction work on his hospital in Goiânia had not been received (Rassi, 2006, tape 3, side A). Edson Porto replaced him in this position, having decided to remain permanently in Brasília.

A descendent of a Lebanese family established in the interior of Brazil since the 1920s, Luiz Rassi, like Edson Porto, left Goiás to study at the Faculdade Nacional de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro. After graduation at the end of the 1940s, he went to Goiânia, where his brother had set up a hospital, and took up residence afterwards (Rassi, 2006, tape 1, side B). His relationship with Brasília, as already mentioned, started with the accord established with Iapi. Considering himself a fan of the mudancista cause, he assessed the medical situation of the interior at the time the new capital was being constructed:

I was always enthusiastic about great economic and population movements... It was an ideal that had to be pursued until its construction, until the end. Why? Even back then, I thought that doctors in Brazil were poorly distributed, always staying close to the coastline. Why didn't the doctors leave the large capitals or why did they stay near the large capitals in states close to the coast, when the interior was totally left to its own devices ... (Rassi, 2006, tape 2, side B).

Many doctors who wrote for the Revista Goiana de Medicina shared the sentiment expressed by Rassi, one also present in the testimony of Edson Porto and Isaac Ribeiro. Often the magazine articles dealt with topics such as the indifference of the government, the isolation, the monotony, the terrible infrastructure conditions, the illiteracy and the poverty of the region in which they lived, identifying them as the main problems faced by the interior population right in the 50s and pointing them out as the consequences of the imbalance between the coast and the interior. Thus, for these doctors, Brasília would be the solution to all of the problems and, for many of them, the imprudent location of the federal capital for such a long time had contributed to the permanence and depth of these inequalities.

The enthusiasm regarding the potential for development that the construction of Brasília would occasion for Goiás is reflected in two outstanding occasions: The 9th Medical Congress of Central Brazil and the Mineiro Triangle and the ceremony founding the Faculdade de Medicina de Goiás. In the work and discussions presented on those two occasions, the participation of the doctors from Goiás in making the new capital viable was very evident. The impact of the construction of Brasília on the life of these professionals at that time can be perceived as they gained peer recognition nationwide and the incentive to achieve their projects.

The 9th Medical Congress of Central Brazil and the Mineiro Triangle was held in Goiânia in 1958, while the construction works on Brasília were proceeding full steam ahead.²¹ I highlight this particular Congress because many important speeches replete with references to the medical work being done at the site of the future federal capital were made, praising the importance of the sanitary activities that, once concluded, would bring the interior up to the level of the other Brazilian states. The results emerging from these discussions, which ended with the sending of a motion regarding sanitation in Brasília to the minister of Health, Mário Pinotti, show how the doctors in the region were engaged in the fight to move the federal capital to the interior. Aware of how the prevention and sanitation work in the region were unfolding, they pointed out in the motion the need for permanent sanitary vigilance in the area to prevent the implantation and spread of esquistossomosis, Chagas disease and other parasitic diseases in the Planalto Central (9º Congresso..., 1958).

The installation of the Faculdade de Medicina de Goiás had been an ideal cherished since the AMG was founded in 1950. Among its motivations, according to Joffre Rezende, editor of the Revista Goiana de Medicina, were the lack of a medical college in the Mid-West region and an insufficient number of doctors to treat the region's population (Rezende, 2001, tape 5, side A). Most doctors, upon graduation, did not opt for the interior, whether due to the lack of stimulus and comfort, since the conditions of a city in the interior were very different from those of a coastal city (the former lacking electric lights, plumbing, a hospital environment etc.), or to the absence of a more active social life. The idea of founding a college also included the intention to graduate doctors devoted to specific problems in the region:

the idea of founding a College of Medicine in Goiás is not the fruit of the vanity of Goians, nor the desire of the medical profession of Goiás to obtain jobs or any other personal advantages; only the high spirit of men accustomed to dealing with our sertão inhabitants, knowing them, and especially their needs and the neglect with which they are treated by those charged with the Nation's destiny, comfortable in their soft chairs and even on the white sands of Copacabana, lead us, doctors of Goiás, to think of a way to form capable professionals, distributing them to the far flung corners of the state to recuperate the rural man, the only way to give our Country a social economic structure equal to destinies that the Future holds for it ... (A Associação Médica..., 1955, p.64).

Initially the college's objective was to contribute to settling doctors in the interior, its rules including the "obligation to work during the year after graduation at places in the State where there is no doctor at the time ..." (A Associação Médica..., 1955, p.63). Nevertheless, according to Luiz Rassi, the project was frustrated due to the lack of a university budget to pay these students. Also according to him, to compensate for the frustrated project, university campus outposts were created where the students did an apprenticeship of at least one month in the interior in places like Porto Nacional, in Goiás (currently Tocantins), and Picos in Piauí. The work was not restricted to Goiás, extending to wherever there was a base, in other words, a public hospital.

As with the construction of Brasília, the College of Medicine represented for the Goian doctors infrastructure improvements for the interior of the country, which, until then, they said, had been forgotten in the government's plans. In addition, it also constituted an opportunity to consolidate their sphere of action, acquiring greater visibility, not only in the work they developed, but also in the region where they practiced. In his testimony, Rassi comments that since he did not wish to trade Goiânia for Brasília, he became enthusiastic about this enterprise because of the countless possibilities it brought to the state and the doctors working there:

From a general viewpoint, Brasília represented the great progress that the State and all of the Brazilian Mid-West felt with its construction. There was population development, economic development and social development. In social development we can say, doctors included, that there was a great surge in the development of applied medicine. The doctors who initially lived in the interior - this was the interior - had a medical practice, not very scientific, but empirical and practical. As Brasília became consolidated as the capital and the population increased, the demands of the population itself required the doctors to enhance their professional capacity. As a result, the doctors specialized, many remained, other people specialized ... Similarly: seeking knowledge in other places, other more advanced medical centers, they brought more modern knowledge to this region. Thus, there was an incalculable benefit in the implantation of a capital in our former sertão, today now no longer the sertão ... (Rassi, 2006, tape 2, side B).

Final considerations

The question that motivated this article was: what would be the significance of constructing in the middle of Brazil's sertão, in a region historically associated with isolation, diseases and poverty, a federal capital that was expected to mirror the development and modernity of a country? At first glance, the decision to transform into reality a consti-tutional precept so often postponed can seem paradoxical, but it can be seen as under-standable when we consider the context of the 50s, a time when rural epidemics constituted a great obstacle that Juscelino Kubitschek's commitment to developmentism made it essential to overcome.

The challenge of constructing Brasília in a region marked by problems of isolation and unhealthiness made the undertaking even more of an 'apotheosis'. Nevertheless, for this 'dream' to come true during the Kubitschek mandate, he relied upon the active participation of the Goians, who, ever since the inclusion of the precept in the Constitution of 1891, had worked to make the transfer of the federal capital viable. Thus, whether through periodicals that praised the wonders of Goiás, cooperating politically in the preparation of decrees that would facilitate the transfer of the capital, or acting effectively on the study commissions regarding the Planalto Central, the Goians demonstrated that, more than consolidation of a national desire, the new capital would represent a response to regional yearnings. Having in mind the benefits that it would bring to Central Brazil as a whole, the mudancista question mobilized Goians on all possible fronts; the speed with which Juscelino Kubitschek was able to accomplish his essential goal owed much to their efforts.

Looking back on the involvement of the Goian elite in carrying out the mudancista project, Goian doctors (or advocates of the Goian ideal) were the main personages in this study. Working in the sertões of Brazil, these professionals saw in the construction of the new capital an opportunity to expand their sphere of action, until then limited to the in-terior, and manifested the great significance of the undertaking being carried out by the federal government through their articles in a medical magazine. As could be noted both in the articles of the Revista Goiana de Medicina and the testimonies, the transfer of the capital to that region represented for the medical elite of that state a projection of their work to the national level, as well as the chance to carry out projects that up to then had been merely ardent desires of Goian medical circles, as for example, the founding of the Faculdade de Medicina de Goiás.

The great mobility of doctors of Central Brazil stands out; despite the difficulties, they found openings where they could circulate professionally as well as socially. Although they complained of the isolation and neglect to which they were relegated, these profes-sionals constantly kept themselves current, participated in congresses and conducted research that was even of interest internationally. The research was published in the periodical organized by their professional association, demonstrating to us the need to rethink the very category of 'sertão' doctor itself. Driven by idealism and the professional prospects opened by the construction of Brasília, they took to the road, following the poorly traveled pathways to Central Brazil and became pioneers in a historical enterprise. For these "pioneers of dust", such as some of these doctors have called themselves to this day, for having been the first to arrive in the region where the new capital would be built, the construction of Brasília contributed to a Goiás that was no longer considered the sertão, but rather as the 'former sertão'.

Thus, singling out the participation of Goiás from an apparently homogenous background in achieving the project of transferring the capital to the interior from the start of the 20th century to the effective construction of Brasília, reflected the need to demonstrate that the discourse on behalf of the move had countless voices, not always dissonant. Most of time, they are hidden in certain historical interpretations, given the need for generalization or even praising the image, always well publicized, of president Juscelino Kubitschek himself, whose daring and enterprising spirit led him - and not some other president - to effect the move. As a result, historical analyses that bring out the regional importance become relevant, because they contribute to a broader under-standing of the social phenomena. In the case of this work, it can be stated that, besides constituting the region chosen to be home to the new capital, Goiás and, more precisely, the Goian medical elite played a fundamental role in achieving the transfer of the capital to the Planalto Central.

NOTES

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Received for publication in August 2008.

Approved for publication in January 2009.

Translator: Glenn Ellefson

1

A free translation is provided in this article of the quoted titles and others that appear in different languages.

2

The first study construction organized by the government to study the region of the Planalto Central and delineate the land that would hold the new federal capital in the future. Constituted in 1892, it was headed by astronomist Luís Cruls and had among its members geologists, botanists, astronomers, pharmacists, doctors and military personnel, for a total of 22 people. The Cruls Quadrilateral, the result of the work done by this construction, encompassed 14,400km

².

3

According to that paradigm, also denominated neo-Hippocratic, there would be an intrinsic relationship between disease, environment and society, based on which it was possible to define the healthiness of a region, as wells as identify possible pathologies related to it (Ferreira, 2001).

4

According to Kropf (2009), although the Neiva and Penna report was published in the volume of the

Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz relative to 1916, there are now indications that it was in fact only published almost two years after. That being the case, one cannot state that Miguel Pereira had proffered the famous phrase based on the impact of the report in question, although it is possible that he had knowledge of this document before its publication. The important thing, according to the author, is to highlight that Miguel Pereira was aware of the precarious conditions in the interior even before the trip made by Neiva and Penna.

5

The impact generated by publication of the Neiva and Penna report was reflected in the organization of the rural sanitarist movement, which acted as a strong element of pressure on the State during the first two decades of the 20th century, unleashing the process of institutionalizing public health in Brazil (Castro Santos, 1980; Hochman, 1993, 1998; Lima, Hochman, 1996, 2000, 2004).

6

Published monthly, the

Informação Goiana was created by the doctor and Goian Antônio Americano do Brasil and an ex-member of the Cruls Commission, Henrique Silva.

7

The information about the Goian mobilization around the periodical in question has an unprecedented character and is part of the research being developed in the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz by researcher Dominichi Miranda de Sá, as per the article in this same supplement ("Interpreting Brazil as afflicted by disease and by the spirit of routine: the repercussion of Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna's medical report (1917-1935)").

8

Among these projects are that of Nogueira Paranaguá, presented in 1905, which proposed practical directives for carryout the move: that of an engineer, who, together with two deputies, had requested of the National Congress the privilege of constructing the capital through the concession of some services in 1908; that of the Goian representative Eduardo Sócrates, who in 1911 justified a project authorizing the move through concessions of privileges in the development of urban services; and the 1919 Chermont project, which was one more frustrated attempt in favor of carrying out the plan (Silveira, 1957).

9

In addition to its president, general Poli Coelho, the other members appointed to the commission were Cristovam Leite de Castro, Odorico Rodrigues de Albuquerque, Artur Eugênio Magarinos Torres Filho, Antonio Carlos Cardoso, Francisco Xavier Rodrigues de Souza, Luiz Augusto da Silva Vieira (vice president), Jerônimo Coimbra Bueno, Jorge Leal Burlamaqui, Lucas Lopes, Luiz de Anhaia Melo and Geraldo H. de Paula e Souza.

10

The state Constitution was promulgated in July 1947. In its article 54 it states: "The future Capital of the Republic being located in this State in the Planalto Central zone, on the date the move is decreed, the area delimited for this purpose by the Federal government will be automatically separated from Goian territory up to the maximum limit of fifty five thousand km

² ..." (Silveira, 1957, p.267).

11

In addition to Caiado de Castro, the commission members were Tasso da Cunha Cavalcanti, Captain Paulo Bosiso, colonel Aureliano Luiz de Faria, Jorge d'Escragnolle Taunay, Ademar Barbosa de Almeida Portugal, Flávio Vieira, João Castelo Branco, Paulo Assis Ribeiro, Valdir Niemeyer, colonel Júlio Américo dos Reis, engineer Jerônimo Coimbra Bueno (who had previously participated on the study commission instituted in the Dutra period), major Mauro Borges Teixeira and colonel Deoclécio Paulo Antunes.

12

The commission was thus composed of Aureliano Luiz de Faria, Ademar Barbosa de Almeida Portugal, Flávio Vieira, Paulo Assis Ribeiro, Júlio Américo dos Reis (former members) plus José Peixoto da Silveira (then secretary of Health for the State of Goiás), Silvio Borges de Souza Mota, José Eurico Dias Martins, Fábio Macedo Soares Guimarães (who participated in the field studies of the Poli Coelho commission), Lucídio Albuquerque, Augusto Sérgio da Silva, Felinto Epitácio Maia and Rubens d'Almeida Horta Porto.

13

Ernesto Silva is a doctor who graduated from the Escola de Medicina e Cirurgia in 1946. He did his residency at the Hospital Souza Aguiar and in 1948 worked in the orthopedic infirmary of the Hospital São Zacarias, transferring afterwards to the hospital's pediatric clinic. In the 1950s, he left clinical medicine and assumed the position of director of Novacap (Silva, 2004, p.109-112).

14

This department also made available smallpox, parathyroid, Salk (polio) and triple vaccination services; a general treatment clinic for Novacap employees; a mobile team that visited the camps, the Núcleo Bandeirante and the satellite cities to vaccinate; a sanitation command, which inspected food retailers, restaurants, bars and itinerant vendors, supervised camps and residences and made monthly visits to the Núcleo Bandeirante brothel to examine the prostitutes (Silva, 2004, p.88-89).

15

Both services were installed in 1958. The Serviço de Tuberculose [Tuberculosis Service], under the direction of phthisiologist Carlos Alberto Florentino, conducted the thoracic census within the community, distributing the results, calling for re-examination, tuberculosis vaccination and control of the focuses of contagion and its communicants. To assist in his work, he relied upon the air service units of the Ministry of Health, under the command of Noel Nutels. In 1959 Novacap constructed a small hospital with twenty beds for the internment of those tuberculosis patients who might recover in a short time (Hospital do Tamboril). The Serviço Nacional de Lepra [National Leprosy Service], led by Almir de Andrade, examined all suspected cases and took the appropriate therapeutic and sanitary measures (Silva, 2004, p.89-91).

16

Joffre Marcondes de Rezende was born in 1921 in Minas Gerais and graduated from the Faculdade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro in 1950. Influenced by one of his classmates, Francisco Ludovico de Almeida, he decided to work in the interior, settling in Goiânia.

17

Published quarterly, the periodical consisted of an editorial, original articles, news (with information on congresses, expeditions and activities of the association itself), summaries of works (including foreign) and clinical-pathological sessions, a literary page and other sporadic sections, such as current topics and correspondence.

18

According to Joffre Rezende (2001, tape 3, side B), Philip Marsden, English professor of tropical medicine, wrote summaries of the

Revista Goiana de Medicina articles and sent them to the

Tropical Diseases Bulletin in London.

19

The installation of this circumscription, under the leadership of João Leão da Motta, relied upon the assistance of Novacap. It was a pioneer post that operated out of a canvas tent and offered malaria vaccinations, trachoma examinations and treatment, an anti-helminth campaign, laboratory exams and research and insect disinfection in homes, shelter and camps, as well as remaining vigilant in the eradication of the kissing bug in neighboring regions (Silva, 2004, p.89).

20

The Cidade Livre [Free City] concentrated commercial, industrial and service activities. Given its character as a temporary nucleus, the buildings had to be made of wood so that the location could be destroyed as soon as the new capital was built. Its name comes from the tax-free status of all activities developed there (Ceballos, 2005, p.86-94).

21

These congresses were an opportunity for interchanges between doctors from the interior, those from large centers and the government. They were considered "important spheres for the social and professional representation and affirmation of clinical practitioners from the interior ..." (Kropf, 2006, p.444). The first took place in 1947 in the city of Uberaba and was restricted to professionals from the Triângulo Mineiro. In 1951, the event included the states of Goiás and Mato Grosso, being transformed into the Medical Congress of the Mineiro Triangle and Central Brazil (Porto, Porto, 1970, p.118).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  16 July 2009
• Date of issue
  July 2009

History

• Accepted
  Jan 2009
• Received
  Aug 2008