The symbolic geopolitics of syphilis: an essay in historical anthropology

Abstract

The article analyzes certain scientific ideas that Brazilian physicians, and particularly syphilologists, have held about this disease. During the 1920's especially, these specialists constructed a uniquely Brazilian version of the disease as they debated with foreign specialists on the origins, symptoms, and incidence of syphilis in Brazil. In their formulations, syphilis became a kind of natural symbol through which they expressed their desires to play a leading role within the international scientific community and put forth efforts to earn Brazil a new status in the world ranking of nations contesting the notion that Brazil was forever doomed to backwardness and barbarism because it was a tropical country with a racially mixed population.