Taking as its point of departure the lesson published by Brazilian psychiatrist Ulisses Vianna in the Arquivos Brasileiros de Neuriatria e Psiquiatria in 1919, the article analyzes the development of that day's medical discussions about 'syphilis of the nervous system' and 'cerebral syphilis,' situating Vianna's work within its broader intellectual scenario. The article also examines the impact of this disease category on psychiatric thought, especially how it strengthened the organicist or somatological concepts of mental illness and adjusted them to the new scenario created by bacteriology.
history of psychiatry; nervous system; cerebral syphilis; Ulysses Vianna; Brazil