Pioneering work in the teaching of pediatrics in Brazil: Carlos Artur Moncorvo de Figueiredo and the General Polyclinic of Rio de Janeiro, 1882-1901

Abstract

The scientific activities of Carlos Artur Moncorvo de Figueiredo at the General Polyclinic of Rio de Janeiro (Policlínica Geral do Rio de Janeiro), which he himself founded, are analyzed. His professional and political actions were fundamental for the introduction of pediatrics both in the establishment of a technical space for healing and in the formation of a specific discipline for the teaching of pediatrics at the faculties of medicine in the Empire, then based in the Court and in Salvador. Rather than arising in response to the social issue surrounding the fight against infant mortality, as is often implied in the historiography, pediatrics seems to have emerged from a movement for the implementation of experimental medicine.