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Wellcome Collection <\/span>Portrait of the doctor, attributed to Lopes RodriguesWellcome Collection <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n This approach was known as phrenology, formulated by German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758\u20131828) and later adopted by Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso (1835\u20131909), who argued that criminality could be identified through physical traits, including bumps or depressions in the skull. In his book As ra\u00e7as humanas e a responsabilidade penal no Brasil<\/em> (The human races and criminal responsibility in Brazil; 1894), Nina Rodrigues wrote that it was a mistake for Brazilian law to treat \u201cthe descendants of civilized Europeans, the children of the savage tribes of South America, and the members of the African hordes, subject to slavery, as equals before the [criminal] code.\u201d<\/p>\n However, he was unable to apply this theory to the skull of the Canudos leader. In his 2016 doctoral thesis at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), historian Filipe Monteiro, now at the State University of Minas Gerais (UEMG), reexamined Rodrigues\u2019s report on Conselheiro\u2019s skull. \u201cThe conclusion was unequivocal,\u201d Monteiro writes. \u201cHe himself wrote: \u2018It is, therefore, a normal skull.\u2019 What he did claim to detect was a chronic delusion with systematic evolution\u2014something that, at the time, was thought to occur only in white people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt that point, Nina Rodrigues began to question craniometric methods, which defended the biological inferiority of certain races or individuals,\u201d says Monteiro, who classifies the doctor as a \u201cvacillating racialist\u201d in both his thesis and a January 2020 article in Topoi<\/em>. Although Nina Rodrigues never supported eugenics, his name remained tied to the doctrine formulated by English physician Francis Galton (1822\u20131911), who defended the supposed superiority of some human groups and advocated the genetic improvement of the population.<\/p>\n Racism is a broader concept than eugenics: it describes a system in which certain alleged human races oppress others, producing consequences that extend beyond ideas of genetic \u201cimprovement,\u201d such as segregation and denial of rights. Racialism provides the theoretical basis, claiming that humanity can be divided into biologically distinct races ranked by supposed superiority. It offers the pseudoscientific justification for unequal systems. Eugenics is one of the practices that can arise within a racist society.<\/p>\n Nina Rodrigues created methods of work and detailed analysis of corpses, the basis of forensic medicine<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The son of farmers, Nina Rodrigues left S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds, the capital of Maranh\u00e3o, for Salvador in 1882. He enrolled in the School of Medicine of Bahia and, three years later, transferred to the School of Medicine in Rio de Janeiro. In 1886, during his fifth year of studies, he produced his first academic work\u2014on morphea, an autoimmune disease that causes hardening and discoloration of the skin\u2014based on cases in residents of Anajatuba, in northern Maranh\u00e3o. In 1887, he returned to Salvador and began an internship at Santa Casa de Miseric\u00f3rdia, before moving once again to Rio de Janeiro. He completed his medical degree at the School of Medicine in Rio de Janeiro in December 1887.<\/p>\n After graduating, Nina Rodrigues began publishing articles on Hansen\u2019s disease (then called leprosy) in the Gazeta M\u00e9dica da Bahia<\/em>, and writing in the S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds newspaper Pacotilha<\/em> about the health impacts of poor nutrition during the short period he lived again in the city before settling permanently in Salvador. His recommendations, including the use of cassava flour as a dietary supplement, made such an impression that he earned the pejorative nickname \u201cDoctor Dry Flour.\u201d<\/p>\n Wikimedia Commons<\/span>Franz Gall, the creator of phrenology, in a lithograph by A. F. KunikeWikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n The study of Afro-Brazilian culture also attracted him. \u201cHe visited African places of worship and studied their rituals,\u201d says Monteiro. \u201cIt was during these visits that he carried out the anthropological work for which he became known, such as the book O animismo fetichista dos negros baianos<\/em> [The fetishistic animism of the Black people of Bahia; 1896].\u201d<\/p>\n In his book O velho e o novo \u201cNina\u201d <\/em>(The old and the new \u201cNina\u201d), published in 1979, Est\u00e1cio de Lima (1896\u20131984), a professor at the School of Medicine of Bahia, recounts that senior physicians were unsettled by the young doctor\u2019s interests. \u201cNina is crazy!\u201d they would say, according to Lima. The reasons, as he discovered: \u201cHe frequents Candombl\u00e9 ceremonies, sleeps with inha\u00f4s [or ia\u00f4s, people initiated into Candombl\u00e9], and eats the food of the orix\u00e1s.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast, others respectfully referred to him as the \u201cDoctor of the Poor,\u201d because he distinguished himself in treating illnesses most common among the most vulnerable populations, such as leprosy, malaria, and beriberi, now known to be caused by a lack of vitamin B1, but at the time still attributed to putrid exhalations called miasmas. Nina Rodrigues played a direct role in controlling a beriberi outbreak at the S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o de Deus Asylum for the Insane, now the Juliano Moreira Hospital, in Salvador. In 1904, 58 of its 180 residents, all with mental disorders, died from the infection.<\/p>\n In an article published in June 2001 in Hist\u00f3ria, Ci\u00eancias, Sa\u00fade \u2013 Manguinhos<\/em>, physicians Ronaldo Jacobina and Fernando Carvalho, from the School of Medicine of Bahia (FAMEB-UFBA), revisited the episode. They report that Nina Rodrigues inspected the asylum, located atop a hill, and concluded that the wind and rain should have prevented the formation of miasmas. He ultimately demonstrated that it was not the environment, but the conditions under which the residents were kept, that caused the deaths. He later proposed and joined a commission responsible for reforming the institution.<\/p>\n Iphan Digital Collection <\/span>S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o de Deus Asylum: in 1904, 58 patients died of beriberi, initially attributed to contaminated airIphan Digital Collection <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In Salvador, Nina Rodrigues also took part in studies aimed at improving basic sanitation and health inspections at ports. These initiatives followed the hygienist ideas that had taken root in Brazil in the nineteenth century, advocating for better sanitary practices as a strategy to prevent contagious diseases (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00b0 134<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n To him, the crowded ships filled with foreigners confined during long sea voyages were ideal breeding grounds for the spread of disease. \u201cNina Rodrigues noted that the government lacked the equipment needed to sanitize the ports or even to remove the terrible odor that lingered in those areas,\u201d says Monteiro.<\/p>\n The doctor also distinguished himself in the field of forensic medicine, which applies medical and scientific knowledge to assist the justice system in resolving legal issues. Before his work, Brazil lacked standardized methods, laboratories, or manuals for forensic practice. \u201cIn many cases, when someone died, the body was only superficially examined at the police station and then buried or disposed of,\u201d explains Monteiro. \u201cNina began emphasizing the need for laboratories and for performing rigorous, detailed examinations of corpses to determine the cause of death.\u201d<\/p>\n This work, however, led him to controversial conclusions. \u201cHe used measurements taken from corpses in an attempt to support racist theories claiming that some races were inferior to others,\u201d says Monteiro in reference to ideas that would later reach Brazil in the twentieth century through other racist intellectual currents, including eugenics.<\/p>\n T. H. Wendt (1907) \/ Wikimedia Commons <\/span>Italians arrive in Santos in 1907: according to Nina Rodrigues, lack of hygiene during the journey facilitated the spread of diseasesT. H. Wendt (1907) \/ Wikimedia Commons <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Eugenics and other proposals<\/strong> In Brazil, eugenic theories, supported by the bourgeoisie and landowners, spread quickly. In 1917, the Rio de Janeiro physician Renato Kehl (1889\u20131974) delivered a lecture at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Published in the Di\u00e1rio do Com\u00e9rcio<\/em>, the speech attracted the figures that would establish the Eugenic Society of S\u00e3o Paulo in 1918. \u201cMembers of this association began debating how eugenics could contribute to fighting diseases, such as yellow fever, and what they called \u2018social poisons,\u2019 referring to issues like alcoholism,\u201d explains G\u00f3es.<\/p>\n \u201cEvaluating Nina Rodrigues always leads to a dilemma,\u201d notes historian Leonardo Dallacqua de Carvalho, from the State University of Maranh\u00e3o (UEMA), author of Um maranhense int\u00e9rprete da miscige(na\u00e7\u00e3o): Raimundo Nina Rodrigues e a forma\u00e7\u00e3o racial brasileira (1862-1906) <\/em>(A Maranhense interpreter of miscegenation: Raimundo Nina Rodrigues and the formation of Brazilian racial culture [1862\u20131906]; 2025). \u201cAt various points, he attempted to defend the rights of Black Brazilians, yet the foundation of this defense was his belief that they were inferior.\u201d<\/p>\n Carvalho stresses, \u201cIt is not accurate to call Nina Rodrigues the father of eugenics.\u201d His reasoning: \u201cEugenics only began to be discussed in Brazil in 1910. Nina was a racialist, but eugenics was not among the theories he used to justify his views on racial inequality.\u201d Monteiro adds, \u201cHe had begun to question racialist theories, though without fully abandoning their core premises. His conclusion after examining Ant\u00f4nio Conselheiro\u2019s skull suggests this distancing.\u201d<\/p>\n Collection of the Oswaldo Cruz House \/ Oswaldo Cruz Foundation<\/span>Advertisement for a book by Renato Kehl published in 1933Collection of the Oswaldo Cruz House \/ Oswaldo Cruz Foundation<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Between the late nineteenth century and the 1930s, several US states adopted eugenic measures, such as the castration of the mentally ill and criminals, under the guise of scientific legitimacy. In Brazil, the only eugenic policy openly supported by the federal government appeared in the 1934 Constitution, which endorsed \u201ceugenic education,\u201d based on the idea that racial improvement could be achieved through procreation among groups considered more evolved.<\/p>\n Other eugenic practices also occurred informally. \u201cPeople who were not necessarily mentally ill, but simply poor and Black, were confined to asylums, where compulsory sterilization was sometimes performed,\u201d reports G\u00f3es. \u201cDuring the military regime [1964\u20131985], sectors of the Armed Forces, using universities and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, created sterilization programs for poor women in the Northeast under the justification of birth control.\u201d Similar practices occurred in other regions of Brazil, though on a smaller scale. According to the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) on Sterilization, established in 1992, 7.5 million women of reproductive age had been sterilized in Brazil since 1964.<\/p>\n More recent examples exist. In February 2018, Judge Djalma Moreira Gomes approved a request by Mococa prosecutor Frederico Liserre Barruffini to sterilize Janaina Aparecida Quirino, a homeless woman deemed unfit to raise children because she was poor and used drugs. The ruling was overturned by a higher court three months later, but only after the irreversible procedure had already been carried out.<\/p>\n \u201cEugenics still exists, but we should avoid trivializing the concept. It\u2019s important to distinguish racism from eugenics so that each can be confronted appropriately,\u201d argues Carvalho. \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult idea to eradicate, because modern society is built on an ongoing pursuit of individual improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n The story above was published with the title “Controversial approach<\/strong>” in issue 357 of November\/2025.<\/p>\n Scientific articles<\/strong> Books<\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/RPF-memoria-nina-rodrigues-franz-gall-2025-11-800.jpg\")
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\n\u201cThe ideas of racial superiority arrived packaged as scientific, grounded in social Darwinism,\u201d says historian Weber Lopes G\u00f3es, from the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), who studied the history of the eugenics movement in Brazil during his master’s and doctoral research. Social Darwinism sought to explain racism, colonialism, and social inequality by wrongly applying the principles of biological evolution to social phenomena. These new conceptual trends blended with theories then considered scientific, such as hygienism and positivism, the latter created by French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798\u20131857), who argued that valid knowledge must be scientific and verified through empirical methods.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/RPF-memoria-nina-rodrigues-livro-2025-11-800.jpg\")
\nDUARTE, Z. et al<\/em>. As ra\u00e7as humanas e a responsabilidade penal no Brasil<\/a>. Gazeta M\u00e9dica da Bahia<\/strong>. Vol. 72, no. 2. 2006.
\nJACOBINA, R. et al.<\/em> Nina Rodrigues, epidemiologista: Estudo hist\u00f3rico de surtos de berib\u00e9ri em um asilo para doentes mentais na Bahia, 1897\u20131904<\/a>. Hist\u00f3ria, Ci\u00eancias, Sa\u00fade<\/strong>. Vol. 3, no. 1. Mar.\u2013June, 2001.
\nFERRETTI, S. F. Nina Rodrigues e a religi\u00e3o dos orix\u00e1s<\/a>. Gazeta M\u00e9dica da Bahia<\/strong>. Vol. 76, no. 2. 2006.
\nMONTEIRO, F. O \u201cracialista vacilante\u201d: Nina Rodrigues e seus estudos sobre antropologia cultural e psicologia das multid\u00f5es (1880-1906)<\/a>. Topoi<\/strong>. Vol. 21, no. 43. pp. 193\u2013215. Jan.\u2013Apr. 2020.
\nG\u00d3ES, W. L. A eugenia entre os s\u00e9culos XX e XXI: Uma discuss\u00e3o necess\u00e1ria<\/a>. Revista Brasileira de Hist\u00f3ria<\/strong>. Vol. 43, no. 94. 2023.<\/p>\n
\nLIMA, E. O velho e novo \u201cNina\u201d<\/strong>. Bahia: Empresa Gr\u00e1fica da Bahia, 1979.
\nG\u00d3ES, W. L. Racismo e eugenia no pensamento conservador brasileiro: A proposta de povo em Renato Kehl<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Paulo: LiberArs, 2015.
\nCARVALHO, L. D. de. Um maranhense int\u00e9rprete da miscige(na\u00e7\u00e3o): Raimundo Nina Rodrigues e a forma\u00e7\u00e3o racial brasileira (1862-1906)<\/strong>. Maranh\u00e3o: Editora da Universidade Estadual do Maranh\u00e3o, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the nineteenth century, the doctor from Maranh\u00e3o adopted a theoretical approach that time has shown to be flawed","protected":false},"author":753,"featured_media":577371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[229,237,241,247],"coauthors":[4945],"class_list":["post-577350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retrospect","tag-epidemiology","tag-genetics","tag-history","tag-medicine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":577375,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577350\/revisions\/577375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577350"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=577350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}