ABSTRACT
This article discusses doctor Belisário Penna’s role in Brazil’s 1930 coup, focusing on his actions as a physician and public figure in the late 1920s. It explores Penna’s connection with president Getúlio Vargas, the repercussions of the coup in the press, letters he received from different sources, and how he became director of the Brazilian National Department of Public Health during the Provisional Government (1930-1934). In particular, the article looks at Penna as a public health official who proposed using “health consciousness” to create a Brazil that was regionally integrated, politically and administratively centralized, and capable of carrying out national public health reform.
Keywords:
Revolution of 1930; Belisário Penna; public health