The article examines how tuberculosis patients who were exiled to sanitarium-cities in the state of São Paulo reacted to the social representations assigned to them not only by the public at large but by medical workers as well. By evaluating memoirs and related documents from the perspective of the anthropology of disease and the diseased, it was possible to identify the network of signifieds created by the afflicted community.
tuberculosis; culture; literature; subjectivity; social representation