Average, normal, and beautiful: representations of bodies in Brazilian biotypology (1930-1940)

Gomes, Ana Carolina Vimieiro; Silva, André Luiz dos Santos

doi:10.1080/14701847.2019.1579498

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Juvenil Rocha Vaz and Waldemar Berardinelli, both professors at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Rio de Janeiro, established and led an important Brazilian school of constitutional medicine and biotypology (Rossi, 1944: Vol. 1, 38; Vimieiro Gomes and Dos Santos Silva, 2019: 82). In the early 1930s, the University of Rio de Janeiro also established a laboratory of biotypology that was attached to the compulsory clinical courses for first-year students (Vimieiro Gomes, 2017: 147).…”

Section: Brazil: Correcting Same-sex Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Italian biotypologists provided the main theoretical framework for Brazilian biotypologists and were held in particularly high regard (Vimieiro Gomes and Dos Santos Silva, 2019: 85). Significantly, as Vimieiro Gomes and Dos Santos Silva have shown, Italian biotypological classifications were seen as ‘an alternative to traditional racial typologies’ (ibid.…”

Section: Brazil: Correcting Same-sex Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920–40

Beccalossi

2023

History of the Human Sciences

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Displacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understanding of the body, psychological reactions, and the sexual instinct, arguing that each were fundamentally malleable. Hormones came to be understood as the chemical messengers that regulated an individual's growth and sexual development, and sexologists interested in this area focused primarily on children and adolescents. Hormone research also promoted a view of the body in which ‘hermaphroditism’, homosexuality, and ‘sexual perversions’ such as masochism and sadism were attributed to anomalies in the internal secretions produced by the testes or the ovaries. This article focuses on Spanish, Italian, Argentinian, and Brazilian sexology shaped by endocrinological research in the interwar period. First, it shows the key role hormone treatments played in the historical development of sexology in Southern Europe and Latin America. Second, it looks at how sexologists employed hormone research to study human sexual development in the early stages of life, and how they set about ‘correcting’ what they viewed as ‘sexual anomalies’.

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Section: Brazil: Correcting Same-sex Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Brazil: Correcting Same-sex Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920–40

Beccalossi

2023

History of the Human Sciences

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“…The University of Rio de Janeiro had an important school of constitutional medicine and biotypology led by Juvenil Rocha Vaz and Waldemar Berardinelli, both professors at the Faculty of Medicine ( Rossi, 1944 : Vol. 1, 38; Vimieiro Gomes and dos Santos Silva, 2019 : 82). In the early 1930s, the University of Rio de Janeiro also established a Laboratory of Biotypology that was linked to the teaching of compulsory clinical courses for first-year students.…”

Section: Brazil Biotypology and The Normalisation Of The Sexual Insmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…As historians Ana Carolina Vimieiro Gomes and André Luiz dos Santos Silva have pointed out, Brazilian biotypologists ‘creatively selected’ the most important theories and techniques for corporeal classification coming from both Europe and the US. Among these appropriations, the Italian approach was dominant in Brazil; Italian biotypologists provided the main framework and were particularly esteemed for their supposedly scientific precision in classifying ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ bodies ( Vimieiro Gomes and dos Santos Silva, 2019 : 84). Significantly, Italian biotypological classifications, with their ‘normalising lexicon, were seen as an alternative to traditional racial typologies’ (ibid.…”

Section: Brazil Biotypology and The Normalisation Of The Sexual Insmentioning

confidence: 99%

Types, norms, and normalisation: Hormone research and treatments in Italy, Argentina, and Brazil, c. 1900–50

Beccalossi

2020

History of the Human Sciences

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Displacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century hormone research promoted an understanding of the body and sexual desires in which variations in sex characteristics and non-reproductive sexual behaviours such as homosexuality were attributed to anomalies in the internal secretions produced by the testes or the ovaries. Biotypology, a new brand of medical science conceived and led by the Italian endocrinologist Nicola Pende, employed hormone research to study human types and hormone treatments to normalise individuals who did not conform to accepted medical norms. Latin American medical doctors, eugenicists, and sexologists took up biotypology with enthusiasm. This article considers the case studies of Italy, Argentina, and Brazil, and analyses the work of medical doctors who adopted a biotypological mode of reasoning and employed to various extents hormone therapies in their practice. By focusing on hormone therapies that aimed to normalise secondary sexual characteristics and the sexual instinct, the article suggests that while the existence of normality was contested to the point that a number of medical scientists argued that no such thing existed, the pursuit of normality was carried out in very practical terms through the new medical technologies hormone research had introduced.

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“…El resto es secundario. 48 Pero aun habiéndose establecido el control de la inmigración, el problema enunciado persistía, por lo que el dilema de Costa sobre cómo producir buena arquitectura en un mal ambiente seguía vigente. Fue entonces Le Corbusier quien proporcionó la forma de destrabar ese dilema desde el mismo marco de enunciación, es decir, pensando eugénicamente.…”

Section: El Ministerio Del Hombre En Río De Janeirounclassified

El “hombre nuevo” y el Ministerio de Educación y Salud de Río de Janeiro (1930-1945)

Vallejo

2022

Hist. Soc.

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gestada en el giro del siglo XIX al XX en el Reino Unido, la eugenesia fue trascendiendo sus fronteras de manera inusitada. Su diversidad se hizo particularmente notoria durante la década de 1930, cuando la expansión en Sudamérica dejó entrever precisos programas de integración a redes internacionales. En ese marco se inscribe el impacto ejercido por la biotipología italiana y por la biocracia francesa, corrientes que alimentaron la eugenesia latina, al aportar modelos normativos y crear con el “hombre nuevo” un estereotipo ejemplar llamado a regenerar las sociedades modernas. Las teorías de sus principales impulsores, Nicola Pende y Alexis Carrel, recorrieron la región a través de la difusión del instituto biotipológico y los estudios que allí se llevaban a cabo, en un caso, y por medio del enorme suceso alcanzado por un libro, en el otro. Se abordan aquí aspectos de la recepción de ambas teorías en la creación del Ministerio de Educación y Salud de Río de Janeiro que debía plasmar material y simbólicamente las ideas de la eugenesia y un estereotipo del hombre brasileño.

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Average, normal, and beautiful: representations of bodies in Brazilian biotypology (1930-1940)

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920–40

Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920–40

Types, norms, and normalisation: Hormone research and treatments in Italy, Argentina, and Brazil, c. 1900–50

El “hombre nuevo” y el Ministerio de Educación y Salud de Río de Janeiro (1930-1945)

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