Medical supervision of sports by the São Paulo state Department of Physical Education: Relations between sports and medicine in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

The article analyzes medical evaluations of athletes conducted in the early years of the São Paulo State Department of Physical Education's (DEF-SP) medical office, founded in 1935 to promote medical supervision of 'exercise and sports' in the state. Through sports medicine supervision, and influenced by eugenicist scientific reasoning, the DEF-SP endeavored to promote more hygienic sports habits that would mold physical types suited for certain modalities of sports. We also observed that in these early years of sports medicine in São Paulo, efforts were made to define the characteristics of a Brazilian physical type.