Between charity and medical knowledge: The clashes surrounding the care of abandoned children in Recife (1840-1860)

Abstract

Between the 1840s and 1860s, social assistance in Recife was heavily criticized, particularly because the children exposed and the institution responsible for them: Casa dos Expostos (House of the Exposed). In this article I seek to historicize the attempts of the medical discourse to construct a notion of healthiness, organization and management of abandoned and poor children asylum in the House of the Exposed that is confronted with customs and charitable practices deeply rooted in culture. The strength of the medical-hygienist discourse comes to fruition with the approval of the 1847 Charitable Institutions Regulation. But the attempt to regulate, order, clean, monitor and institute a wholesome and hygienic environment is confronted with varying forms of life and responses emanating from Children, women, daughters and poor families, who not only resisted attempts to control and regulate their lives, but also made various uses of the institution. Medical knowledge needed more time and many battles, with different forms of life and reinventing in the world, to gain hegemony over the population and the city, as well as to establish a homogenous discourse within its own borders. But his victory did not happen without conflicts, besides having suffered some defeats.