Mental illnesses in tropical climates (1906)

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Acknowledgments

The translation of this paper from Portuguese to English was generously funded by Clínica Jorge Jaber.

Information on original publications and biographical notes about the authors

By Ana Maria G. R. Oda: Professor of the Department of Medical Psychology and Psychiatry, State University of Campinas, Brazil. Editor of the section ‘História da Psiquiatria’ [History of Psychiatry] of Revista Latinoamericana de Psicopatologia Fundamental.

Original publication: Moreira, Juliano; Peixoto, Afrânio (1906). Les maladies mentales dans les climats tropicaux. Archivos Brasileiros de Psychiatria, Neurologia and Sciencias Affins, vol.2, n. 3, p. 222-241 (Communication presented at the XV International Congress of Medicine, Lisbon, 1906). A Portuguese version of this text was published in 2005 in the Revista Latinoamericana de Psicopatologia Fundamental, vol. 8, n. 4, p. 794-811, preceded by an introdutory article. Translation by American Journal Experts from the Portuguese version, technical revision by Ana Maria G. R. Oda. The format of the references has been updated.

Juliano Moreira (1873–1933) graduated from the School of Medicine of Bahia in 1891. His family was descended from enslaved Africans, though his parents were free people. Between 1896 and 1903, he was Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the School of Medicine of Bahia. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1903 to direct the National Hospital for the Insane, a position he held until 1930. Moreira advocated for the theoretical modernization of psychiatry and its practice in hospitals, and he disseminated the work of Emil Kraepelin. In the National Hospital, he undertook an ambitious reform project that included improvements in patient facilities; the installation of pathology and biochemical analysis laboratories; the abolition of the use of straitjackets and iron bars on windows; the creation of a school to train psychiatric nurses; and the establishment of statistical and clinical records. He was one of the founders of the Archivos Brasileiros de Psychiatria, Neurologia and Sciencias Affins (1905), the first journal in the field of neuropsychiatry. He produced a large body of scientific work. He participated in the creation of the Brazilian Society of Psychiatry, Neurology and Forensic Medicine, was president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and was president of the Rio de Janeiro chapters of the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis and the Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene. He stated that an individual's racial makeup neither granted him immunity nor made him more susceptible to specific forms of insanity, and he rejected the theory that black people were innately mentally inferior, attributing the intellectual differences between whites and blacks to social and educational factors.

Afrânio Peixoto (1876–1947) graduated from the School of Medicine of Bahia in 1898 and began his career as a psychiatrist at the National Asylum for the Insane in Rio de Janeiro. Additionally interested in forensic medicine, Peixoto was later a Professor at the School of Law of the Rio de Janeiro and director of the Forensic Medicine Institute, entered national politics, and held important positions in the field of education. He was also a novelist and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

In the article ‘Mental illnesses in tropical climates’ (1906), Moreira and Peixoto claim that the modernization of Brazil brought various evils, viewed as the ‘diseases of progress’ in the early 20th century. By insisting that psychopathological manifestations occur with equal frequency in hot and cold climates, they rejected the exotic image of madness in tropical countries that European psychiatrists had been constructing since the 19th century.

Notes

1 The graph referred to was not found in our copy of the original article (Revisor's note).

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