The “reality of the knowledge and the ability instilled”: climate, doctors, and public health in Brazil, 1808-1835

Abstract This article analyzes the efforts to build spaces for medical community in Brazil since transfer of Court from Lisbon Rio de Janeiro 1808, through country’s independence process, until creation Imperial Academy Medicine, 1835. Such initiatives affirm prominence medical-scientific knowledge face traditional healing practices, as well a hygienic agenda independent nation, strongly linked legitimation local expertise Brazilian climatology. Throughout this some leaders involved sought convergence between discourse and interests nascent imperial state, while at same time announcing renewal mechanisms career that, supposedly, started be given by scientific merit instead patronage system typical Ancien Régime.