O percurso da química em Belo Horizonte (1890-1960): Aspectos do seu desenvolvimento antes da implantação da pesquisa e da pós-graduação

Abstract

This thesis describes and analyzes some aspects of the trajectory of chemistry in Belo Horizonte since its choice as the new seat of government of Minas Gerais until the 1960`s, when postgraduate studies and organized scientific research began to become the norm in Brazilian universities, starting with the 1968 university reformation. The historiographic analysis begins in 1890, when the small village of Curral del Rei was chosen to become the new capital, and was renamed Belo Horizonte. The first initiatives taken in what concerns chemistry were analyses of the waters to be distributed to the population of several localities which were competing to be the seat of the new capital, as well as several steps towards the use of chemistry in a series of industrial enterprises in pharmaceuticals and in the industries that began to be established. At the same time, chemistry started to be taught in a number of educational establishments, notably under Alfred Schaeffer, a German chemist who arrived in the city in 1911 to establish the state`s new analytical laboratories. The latter also was important after the founding of the School of Medicine in 1911. In the following decade the activities of José Baeta Vianna, the founder of Brazilian biochemistry, and Aggeo Pio Sobrinho, a chemical entrepreneur, saw the beginning of a fruitful association that led to the development and production of medicines, especially of Iodobisman, trade name of bismuthyl iodide, a drug with successful results against syphilis before the advent of antibiotics. Another chapter deals with an important laboratory that, since 1920, housed different works in the field of inorganic chemistry and geochemistry. This institution became a beacon in a society in which mineral products had always played a pivotal role, as they still do.