Geraldo Horácio de Paula Souza, a China e a medicina chinesa, 1928-1943

Abstract

This essay is on the writings of sanitary doctor Geraldo Horácio de Paula Souza in Eugenia e Imigração (1928) and, after an official trip to the Orient, in Digressões sobre a medicina chinesa clássica (1942) and A sabedoria chinesa diante da ciência ocidental e a Escola Médica de Pequim (1943). The documents, analyzed according to the conceptual approach of Carlo Ginzburg, indicate a change in his view of the Chinese. Trained according to the Rockefeller Foundation's model of experimental medicine, Geraldo de Paula Souza was guided in his work by scientific rigor and record imagery. In his youth he was of the opinion that the Chinese civilization was stagnated, but this view changed after his visit, when he perceived the Chinese republic's capacity to modernize.