The Defense of Brazilian Civilization from the Criticism to the use of Perfumes: Doctors in Medicine in Bahia of the XIX Century
In academic theses written by doctors in the 19th century state of Bahia (Brazil), we are confronted with the statement that perfumes are an evil to be avoided. Concerned with promoting the health of the population and establishing themselves in a country strongly marked by the dispute between different agents dedicated to healing, doctors trained at the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia, inaugurated in 1832, will insist on the pathological character of the aromatics and, with that, will place themselves against certain customs of colonial Brazil, as well as practices brought at the beginning of the century by the Portuguese Crown. The arguments simultaneously articulate body and morality in the construction of a discourse of truth that would constitute the scientific and aims at the same time to discuss and institute civilization in Brazil. Our goal is, based on the theses, to identify and understand some of the tensions that involve the different ways in which smells and perfumes were thought in the period.