A química nos primórdios de Belo Horizonte: sujeitos e instituições pioneiras na capital mineira

Abstract

In this article we discuss the initial activities related to chemistry and its various applications in the early years of Belo Horizonte, mentioning its actors and institutions.The aim was to build an understanding of the development of its technical aspects in the early days of the city, since its foundation in 1897 as the new capital of Minas Gerais. The historiographical analysis spans the time from 1893, when the village of Curral del Rei was chosen as the site for the new capital until 1912, when the German chemist Alfred Schaeffer became the main reference in Chemistry in the city, as the Director of the State Chemical Analysis Laboratory. Varied sources were used to describe this trajectory: the reports of the Commission of Study of the Localities for the New Capital and the Commission for the Construction of the New Capital, as well as reports by the first mayors, yearbooks, almanacs and periodicals of the time. Through the chemical analysis of the waters of the site, their quality was approved to host the future capital. In the first years of the new city several novelties appeared, such as the production of pharmaceutical formulations, reducing the need for imports, as well as food and personal hygiene products. From 1911, with the arrival of the renowned German chemist Alfred Schaeffer and the establishment of a laboratory with equipment brought from Germany, chemical analyses of various samples were undertaken, such those of water, milk and minerals.