This article brings up aspects of two “discourses” related to sensitivity toward madness. They consist of representations (narratives) written from the 1920s to the 1950s betweem a physician and a patient, both of the São Pedro Psychiatric Hospital in Porto Alegre, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. For this purpose, use was made of the book by Jacintho Godoy entitled Psiquiatria no Rio Grande do Sul (Psychiatry in Rio Grande do Sul), published by the author in 1955, and letters from a hospitalized patient, in 1937, taken from his medical records.
Madness; psychiatry; cultural history; Rio Grande do Sul; narrative