Resumen

COUTO, Rita Cristina C. de Medeiros. Eugenics, modness and the femine condition. Cad. Pesqui. [online]. 1994, n.90, pp.52-61. ISSN 0100-1574.

The object of the article is to point out some socio-normative aspects that characterized the female gender and that were defended as criteria for normality by a school of psychiatric thought influenced by eugenics. To do so, examples of the dossiers of patients at the Sanatorio Pinel de Pirituba and questionnaires answered by the people responsible for the patients (usually family members). The mental hospital, whose associates are members of intellectual and economic elite, was created in accord with the precepts of Mental Hygiene, which was intended to combat social degeneration preventively and thus safeguard the model of the ideal citizen. Through this documentation and the reports on female normality set forth in the work of the eugenicist, Renato Kehl, and of the feminist, Maria Lacerda de Moura, in addition to the nosological criteria presented by Antonio Carlos Pacheco e Silva, the organic essence attributed to society may be observed. In it, the moral conduct of the people should be policed also medically, beginning wigh the family.

Palabras clave : Mulheres; Eugenia; Loucura .

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