One hundred and twenty years from the former ‘Pavilion for Clinical Observation' to the National Lunatic Asylum, later Institute of Psychiatry – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The Pavilion for Clinical Observation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also known as the Pavilion for Admissions, was designed by Professor of Psychiatry João Carlos Texeira Brandão (1854–1921). It was based on the influence of French alienism as a forum for the screening and evaluation of possible mental illness and the forwarding to the National Lunatic Asylum of patients so diagnosed. It was officially created by the Federal Brazilian Decree number 1559 of October 1893 in order to assess the appropriate disposal of suspects sent by the police. The Pavilion was the first University Psychiatric Hospital in Brazil, a pioneer in the integration of teaching, research and clinical practice. The Chair of Clinical Psychiatry, established in 1881, did not until then have a specific place for teaching and practical experience. Over the years subjects were examined and treated, based not only on theories arising from French and later German medical literature but also on the psychiatric practice developed in the Pavilion for Clinical Observation. This was the germ of the consolidation of psychiatric knowledge in Brazil, giving it status and generating a genuinely Brazilian Psychiatric Science.