One hundred and twenty years from the former ‘Pavilion for Clinical Observation' to the National Lunatic Asylum, later Institute of Psychiatry – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The Pavilion for Clinical Observation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also known as the Pavilion for Admissions, was designed by Professor of Psychiatry João Carlos Texeira Brandão (1854-1921). It was based on the influence of French alienism as a forum for the screening and evaluation of possible mental illness and the forwarding to the National Lunatic Asylum of patients so diagnosed. It was officially created by the Federal Brazilian Decree number 1559 of October 1893 in order to assess the appropriate disposal of suspects sent by the police. The Pavilion was the first University Psychiatric Hospital in Brazil, a pioneer in the integration of teaching, research and clinical practice. The Chair of Clinical Psychiatry, established in 1881, did not until then have a specific place for teaching and practical experience. Over the years subjects were examined and treated, based not only on theories arising from French and later German medical literature but also on the psychiatric practice developed in the Pavilion for Clinical Observation. This was the germ of the consolidation of psychiatric knowledge in Brazil, giving it status and generating a genuinely Brazilian Psychiatric Science.

One hundred thirty years of Dom Pedro II’s death: “The emperor of the tropics” and the beginning of Brazilian Psychiatry

“…However, the institution problems reimaned, specially the one related to the absence of a more strict selection process of the patients admissions 16 . Due to the overcrowded place and the continuous demand of street patients recquired by the police, it was created the Pavilion of Clinical Observation at an area close to the asylum by Texeira Brandão, in 1893 16 . It was a place for patients to be evaluated before their admission at the asylum.…”

“…It was a place for patients to be evaluated before their admission at the asylum. This pavilion also represented a possibility for clinical study of psychiatry and research, besides an instrument to develop the psychiatry science 16 .…”

“…This emblematic building was donated to the Brazil University and nowadays it is the University Palace of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro 12 (Figure 2). The psychiatric tradition and history continued to be preserved in that area by the Institute of Psychiatry originated from the Pavilion of Clinical Observation 16 .…”

João Carlos Teixeira Brandão, the first Brazilian professor of Psychiatry

“…He became an emeritus member of the Imperial Academy in 1918 (Figure 1). In 1897, he helped found the Society of Medical and Anthropological Jurisprudence at a meeting convened in the Pavilion for Clinical Observation 1 and was elected its president. That same year, the Society began to publish the Archives of Medical and Anthropological Jurisprudence.…”

“…From there they were transferred to the National Asylum for the Alienated, with no identification, background, or information on causes of their purported illness. Based on this proposal, the Pavilion for Clinical Observation for Medical Care and Legal Aid for the Alienated was created in 1892 1 .…”