Institutions of seclusion and “control” of the insane in Parahyba do Norte between 1889 and 1928

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, the city of Parahyba do Norte, influenced by the ideas of modernity and civilization, experienced a series of reforms in the physical space as well as several transformations in the customs, habits and daily lives of its population. These reforms sought to “remove” and “exclude” from the central areas of the city those who were held responsible for promoting “disorder.” It was about destroying buildings outside the so-called alignment and / or excluding and, if possible, silencing historically, the poor, abandoned minors, beggars and madmen who roamed the streets. In this article, we intend to study, specifically, the attempts to exclude individuals considered crazy from the streets of the city of Parahyba do Norte as well as the psychopolitics of exclusion. Sources such as the Reports of the Presidents of State / Province, the Santa Casa de Misericórdia Report, and the newspapers of the time were searched for, trying to historicize the attempts to control the so-called “furious” in the Public Jail, at Santa Casa da Misericórdia, later Sant'Anna asylum and, finally, at the Colônia Juliano Moreira hospital, when psychiatric doctors can exercise knowledge / power in institutions based on scientific discourses. ficos, who cloistered, watched and silenced those labeled with the mark of madness.