De menino a homem. discursos sobre a puberdade masculina na endocrinologia (buenos aires, décadas de 1950 e 1960)

Abstract

Objectives: This work aims to analyze the discourse on puberty within endocrinology and physiology in Argentina in the 1950s and 1960s. It seeks to problematize the relationship between medicine and science with certain moral suppositions regarding childhood and gender differences. Contents: Articles and books by Alberto Bernardo Houssay and Martin Cullen are analyzed. These two specialists were important participants in the renovation and consolidation of relevant disciplines after 1955. Conclusions: Notions of masculinity and childhood influenced the evaluation of patients interpreted as men who did not conform to norms establishing an expected age for puberty, genitals of a pre-established size and “manly” morphology. Endocrinologists in Buenos Aires conformed to a hegemonic interpretive approach in the international context that recognized hormonal functioning as a complex system regulated by the pituitary. Most evaluations, however, ascribed sexual difference not only to metabolism but also to subjects’ musculature, skin, skeletal structure, and behavior. Puberty was a focus of attention and special observation because it represented the onset of sexual difference in patients’ bodies. Interventions included the application of the drugs available on the market and more prudent approaches that responded to objections raised by psychosomatic pediatrics.