Proportional mortality ratio due to chagas disease is five times higher for the state of Goias than the rest of Brazil

Mortality data due to Chagas disease for the endemic State of Goias, Brazil, was retrieved from the National System of Information on Mortality, between 2006 and 2011. A total of 29,041 deaths were attributed to Chagas disease in the country, of which 4,293 (14.8%) occurred in the State of Goias. The proportion of deaths attributable to Chagas disease was 0,4% for the country overall and 2.4% for State of Goias. Seventy-two percent of the records were from individuals over 60 years of age, and heart disease was the main cause of death in 80.3%. Chagas disease is a major cause of death in Goias and, proportionally, 5.3 times higher than for the rest of the country.

Batalha contra o charlatanismo: institucionalização da medicina científica na província de Goiás / The battle against charlatanism: the institutionalization of scientific medicine in the province of Goiás

Enfoca os embates entre os tipos de medicina praticados em Goiás no século XIX, momento em que o discurso médico científico se impõe e define os espaços de atuação dos médicos diplomados em detrimento dos não diplomados, considerados charlatães pelos primeiros. Sobrelevam-se da análise os conflitos derivados da tentativa da medicina acadêmica de impor-se sobre as demais artes de curar, evidenciando sua dificuldade em instituir o privilégio exclusivo das atividades terapêuticas. Destaca ainda, por meio da trajetória profissional de três médicos que fizeram carreira no interior do Brasil, o lento processo de consolidação da medicina.

The article centers on conflicts between the types of medicine practiced in nineteenth-century Goiás, when the discourse of scientific medicine imposed its presence and defined the spaces where physicians holding medical degrees could practice while precluding those without degrees, viewed as charlatans by the former. The analysis underscores the clashes triggered as academic medicine endeavored to hold sway over other healing arts, along with the challenges it encountered in establishing an exclusive claim to the practice of medical treatment. The careers of three physicians from the interior of Brazil serve to illustrate the slow process by which medicine achieved institutionalization.