O “INTERVENTOR DA SAÚDE”: Trajetória e pensamento médico de Bonifácio Costa e sua atuação no Departamento Estadual de Saúde do Rio Grande do Sul (1938-1943)

Abstract

The centralizing context of the Estado Novo (Getúlio Vargas’s dictatorship, between 1937-1945) brought José Bonifácio Paranhos da Costa to Rio Grande do Sul. He was a federal technician from the National Department of Health, and was to take over the health services of the state. This public health physician, himself born in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and living in Rio de Janeiro, arrived in a context of verticalization of policies and knowing about him is essential to understand this reality. In Rio Grande do Sul, Bonifácio Costa performed the Sanitary Reform of 1938, according to federal guidelines, and established the State Department of Health. Our goal was to reconstruct the personal and professional history of José Bonifácio Paranhos da Costa, and also his medical thinking and his relationships in various spheres, in order to find out whether these variables influenced his work and the health reform he promoted in 1938 in the Rio Grande do Sul State Department of Health; and also to underestand how these elements are related. From a microanalytic perspective, using a procedure of “nominal record linkage”, we sought to trace the network of relationships of our character, perceiving the existence of brokers and facilitators during his professional career. Due to the lack of studies focusing on public health during this period, we also tried to “inventory” the main actions of the State Department of Health. As regards autonomy, we perceived that, at the same time as he fulfilled all requirements of the National Department of Health, Bonifácio Costa also established a different administrative atmosphere that he even tried to import to other states and apply at the federal level, in a decentralizing initiative that broke with the idea of a vertical policy.