Science, health, modernity and national security

the implantation of the x-ray diagnosis in the Brazilian Navy in the early 20th century

Abstract

This article intends to analyze the implantation of the radioscopy cabinet at the Navy Hospital in 1902 by request of the surgeon, lieutenant José Ribas Cadaval. In the first part, we analyze the scientific discourse of the x-rays' applications as an element of the modernization process applied to the navy by Cadaval, before the same idea on warships. On second, we analyze practice and the medical formation as a process, whereas that formation was in development of it's basis so as that the scientific discourse sought to stablish the limits between the knowledge fields so as the proper methodological proceedings. On third, we will discuss the implantation discourse of the cabinet converging to the national security and power assumptions in debate in the Navy based from the Sea Power Theory, by Alfred Mahan. We utilized newspapers, reports from the Ministry of Navy and most importantly the Brazilian Maritime Magazine, all of them published between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, analyzing the debates in the Navy about the radioscopy, the newly discovered x-ray uses and Cadaval's acting, since he had experience on that proceeding when he requested it's installation at the Navy Hospital on Rio de Janeiro.