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Meduna Sanatorium; Modernity; Teresina; Clidenor de Freitas Santos; Craziness
This dissertation intends to build an analysis of the existing relationships between theconstruction of the Sanatorium Meduna with the ideal progress and modernity existing inTeresina in the 1950s. Teresina was founded in 1952, planned to be a modern city in the midstof a province that still carried aspects colonial. Meduna Sanatorium is inserted in the city in acontext of lack of mental health assistance. The institution and its founder, Clidenor de FreitasSantos, played an indispensable role in the constitution of a Piauí psychiatry. Thus, in order toanalyze the relationship between Sanatório Meduna and the modernization of Teresina's urbanspace, we enter into other important issues for the theme. Consequently, we investigated thenecessary events that led Clidenor de Freitas Santos to consider the construction of theMeduna Sanatorium; how assistance was given to the insane before and after the hospital,without forgetting the importance of Clidenor de Freitas Santos in this process; whatconception of madness existed in Piauí in this clipping; the relationship between madness andcriminality; what was the social profile of the Meduna Sanatorium patients; among otheraspects. Therefore, it was necessary to base the discussion in the light of theorists such asFoucault, Henri Lefebvre, Norbert Elias. As a source, newspapers, reports, testimonies andmessages from the governors of Piauí, the previous files of the general picture of the patientsof Sanatório Meduna, the regiment of Sanatório Meduna and an interview with the daughterof Clidenor de Freitas Santos were used. With the analysis of this documentation, associatedwith the historiographical debate of the period, we verified the importance of the constructionof the Sanatorium Meduna, inserted in a scenario present in many other Brazilian cities,referring to the modernization of the urban space and assistance to the insane.