Gazeta Médica da Bahia na história da ciência (1866-1966): análise da trajetória e dos desafios de permanência no século XX

Abstract

This thesis deals with scientific communication in the History of Science through the Gazeta Médica da Bahia. Scientific journal founded in 1866, by a group of doctors unrelated to the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia, the only higher education institution in the locality at the time. The journal remained active between 1866 and 1934 and was suspended from 1935. Reactivated in 1966 on the occasion of the centenary of its foundation, it was institutionalized as an official publication of the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia, then a unit of the Federal University of Bahia. The thesis investigates which factors contributed to the suspension of the Gazeta during a period of scientific upswing in Brazil, in the first decades of the 20th century. As a hypothesis, I argue that a set of factors associated with economic, social and political aspects dictated the direction of the journal, leading it to be suspended in 1935. Interconnecting Information Science with the History of Science, it is observed that factors related to the structure of scientific journals, as well as the competition from new journals in the face of the emergence of specialization in the face of the generalist aspects of the journal, harmed the Gazeta's permanence in the scientific scene of the 1930s. On the other hand, the social issue posed, in which the representation of the founding nucleus of the periodical was extinguished, first with the death of Dr. Silva Lima in 1910, then that of the doctor Pacífico Pereira in 1922, director of the periodical for almost 50 years, disrupted the group's collective thinking style. Finally, issues of a local and national political nature, which influenced the trajectory of the journal under the management of Dr. Aristides Novis, who was director of the Faculty of Medicine at the same time as the director of the Gazeta. Historical research, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, adopts the Evidence Paradigm associated with Trajectory Study, through bibliographic and documentary recovery, to achieve the following specific objectives: survey the structural characteristics of the journal; present the participation and contribution of doctor José Francisco da Silva Lima in the Gazeta's trajectory and analyze aspects linked to the dynamics of Dr. Aristides Novis in the direction of the periodical and the context for the journal's resurgence in 1966. I conclude that changes in the scientific field and economic, sociocultural and political factors were decisive for the suspension of the journal. Furthermore, I point out that the return of Gazeta Médica da Bahia, in 1966, in addition to recognizing the importance of the journal for Bahian medical science, rescues and preserves the memory of the scientific development that occurred in Bahia in the second half of the 19th century. Furthermore, it promoted access to studies carried out in the initial stages of Brazilian science and encouraged the search for answers that involve economic, social and political investment in scientific research in Bahia in a comparative way with other regions of Brazil. However, it can be seen that the causes of the Gazeta's suspension in 1935 were not overcome with its return in 1966, since the journal's ephemeral permanence until 1972 points to questions of a broad nature, suggesting more targeted investigations around the 1960s and 1970 in Bahia and Brazil.