O fortalecimento da profissão médica e militar no Brasil: a trajetória de Thomaz Cardoso de Almeida (1809-1875)

Abstract

This article examines, through the evidential method, the trajectory of the Goiás Thomaz Cardoso de Almeida (1809-1875), who worked in various regions of Brazil as a military and civilian physician. The evidential paradigm, as well as the analysis in the microscopic scope, by Carlo Ginzburg, was the path adopted to understand the medical and military activity in the nineteenth century. The sources used are composed of reports produced by the physician, newspaper articles, and reports from provincial presidents. Although the documents related to our character's trajectory were not intended to explain how physicians, in general, proceeded towards professional advancement, achieving political benefits and obtaining results in their careers. These sources give us clues, which when interpreted and compared with others, allow us to point out their initiatives as being generalized procedures or that their performance was exemplary. His professional path permeates the strengthening of the profession in the country, at a time when a career pattern was developed in the process of affirmation of the medical elite as a social group. His journey, however, was not without its setbacks.