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This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Spanish Abstract All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2003.036020v1 97/7/1168    most recent Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Lima, N. T. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Lima, N. T. Related Collections Social Science Health Policy Health Professionals History Public Health Practice Rural Health

Nísia Trindade Lima, PhD

The author is with the Graduate School of the History of Science and Health, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Nísia Trindade Lima, PhD, Fiocruz, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Prédio da Expansão, Av. Brasil 4036, 4^o andar, sala 406, Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, 21040-361, Brazil (e-mail: lima{at}coc.fiocruz.br).

Public health in Brazil achieved remarkable development at the turn of the 20th century thanks in part to physicians and social thinkers who made it central to their proposals for "modernizing" the country. Public health was more than a set of medical and technical measures; it was fundamental to the project of nation building.

I trace the interplay between public health and social ideas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Physicians and social thinkers challenged the traditional belief that Brazil’s sociocultural and ethnic diversity was an obstacle to modernization, and they promoted public health as the best prescription for national unity.

Public health ideas in developing countries such as Brazil may have a greater impact when they are intertwined with social thought and with the processes of nation building and construction of a modern society.