Between asylums and schools: The formation of the brazillian model for treating idiocy

Abstract

This article aims to analyze franco-brazillian exchanges concerning the treatment of idiotic children in the early 20th century, with the objective of demonstrating the uniqueness of the Brazilian response to this issue, and to prove the existence of a "hybrid" model in Brazil. It examines idiocy from the perspective of classical French alienism as defined by Philippe Pinel, when the condition was understood as incurable, to the interpretation from the second half of the 19th century, which viewed it as a condition that could be cured through education. The article addresses the disputes between treatment models in France: the "asylum-school" model proposed by Désiré-Magloire Bourneville, and the model that replaced it in the early 20th century, involving special schools attached to regular schools—proposed by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon. By analyzing this dispute between models, similarities and differences are identified between the two French models and what was practiced in the first psychiatric section dedicated to child treatment in Brazil, Bourneville Pavillion, located at the National Asylum Hospital in Rio de Janeiro. This investigation allows us to conclude that the medical-educational treatment of idiocy in Brazil can be considered a "hybrid model" between the "asylum-school" model and the attached schools model due to Brazil's internal needs. At that time, Brazil began to value childhood as an important resource for the country's modernization, following its own agenda shaped by the choices of doctors and scientists of the period, who aligned with the desires and priorities of the First Republic.