This paper aims to recover the first decades of public health education in Rio de Janeiro, since the former Federal Capital was an important graduating center of sanitarian professionals. In Rio de Janeiro, the Federal Government established pioneers health centers and count on the technical aid and on the human resources of "Fundação Rockefeller". Concerning to socioeconomic and political structure of the 1920's, the work includes the public health education during the First Republic, and goes through Vargas and Capanema eras and finishes, approximately in the beginning of the 1960's. This paper analyses the trajectory of public health and hygiene courses in Rio de Janeiro, since the era of well-known physicians who were also entrepreneurs — such as Carlos Chagas, Afrânio Peixoto, João de Barros Barreto and José Paranhos Fontenelle —, still in the first quarter of century XX. These names were closely bound to the first courses of Professional graduation in public health area, in the Republic's Capital and in all Brazilian Territory.
Carlos Chagas; João de Barros Barreto; professions; Fundação Rockefeller; Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública (National School of Public Health)