Entre antropologia e medicina: Uma análise dos estudos antropológicos de Álvaro Fróes da Fonseca nas décadas de 1920 e 1930

Abstract

The physician and anthropologist Álvaro Fróes da Fonseca lived in several cities in Brazil during his career in the first half of the 20th century. He worked in the chair of Medical-Surgical Anatomy at the Faculties of Medicine of Porto Alegre, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. As an anthropologist, he held activities at the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro and, in the 1960s, at the Instituto de Antropologia Tropical of the Faculty of Medicine in Recife. In this article, I intend to recover the contributions of Fróes da Fonseca on anthropology, analyzing some of his research developed at the Laboratory of Anthropology of the Museu Nacional and others published in the journal of this institution between the 1920s and 1930s. During this period, he brought together scientists, developed and directed several works on physical anthropology and the 'anthropological types', focusing on developing methods and patterns of racial classification, i.e., on producing concepts and techniques to guide anthropological practice. He refuted the scientific racism of the period, so the research conducted by Fróes da Fonseca reflected on the 'race problem' and the issue of miscegenation in favor of Brazil's future.