Os estudos sobre a etiologia do câncer na virada do século XX e o médico brasileiro Alfredo Leal Pimenta Bueno

Detalhes bibliográficos
Ano de defesa: 2016
Autor(a) principal: Andrade, Rodrigo de Oliveira lattes
Orientador(a): Alfonso-Goldfarb, Ana Maria
Banca de defesa: Não Informado pela instituição
Tipo de documento: Dissertação
Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
Idioma: por
Instituição de defesa: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo
Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em História da Ciência
Departamento: Faculdade de Ciências Exatas e Tecnologia
País: Brasil
Palavras-chave em Português:
Palavras-chave em Inglês:
Área do conhecimento CNPq:
Link de acesso: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/19370
Resumo: The 19th century constitutes a period of strong incidence of researches on cell biology. With the advent of new microscopy techniques, a more comprehensive study of cells behaviour has allowed a better understanding of the conditions that could favour or even determine the appearance of tumours. From then on, several scientists have proposed conceptual, medical and institutional pathways of research and treatment against the disease. The aim of this work is to analyse the panorama of studies and theories on cancer etiology proposed between the latest decades of 19th century and the first two decades of 20th century. We intend to understand how the concepts related to cancer mechanisms have been built and reinterpreted over those decades, and how has this knowledge arrived in Brazil. In this regard, Brazilian doctor Alfredo Leal Pimenta Bueno’s work is going to be used as a case study. Pimenta Bueno presented his ideas on the biochemical phenomena that could trigger cancer in a series of scientific articles published in the Brazilian scientific journal O Brasil Médico between 1926 and 1928. In this dissertation, we show that cancer has transformed into an entity that was more and more discussed and studied in the Europe over the 19th century, and that its construction as a medical problem in Brazil during the first two decades of the 20th century occurred in a scenario in which the attention was still focused on diseases with a greater social impact, such as tuberculosis. At the same time, we have verified that Pimenta Bueno was one of the few Brazilian scientists who investigated cancer etiology, constructing his theory based on the writings of several scientists, appealing to them whenever necessary in order to justify his points of view. In his articles, Pimenta Bueno concludes that cancer could be caused by different agents — all of them would act in the way of causing an irritation, resulting in an over hydration inside cells, which would return to their embryonic stage and, finally, reacquire their proliferation capacity