Medicine and Public Health In Brazil: from the medicine men and physicians to the XXth-century men of sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the historical changes in the practice of Medicine in Brazil, starting in the Colonial times, until the beginning of the XXth century. We can state that colonial medicine was developed without many resources and without much credibility among the country’s population. During the Brazilian monarchy that situation has changed and, after the beginning of the XXth century, the medical practice was already divided into several medical specialities and the mission of its practitioners become the own regeneration of the human race.