Philology and documents of the 20th century: letters and medical records of Sanatorio Pinel

Our aim is to present philological activities of Brazilian documents dated between 1929 and 1944. They are composed by medical reports and personal letters written by patients who were admitted to the Sanatorio Pinel, in Sao Paulo. From selected fragments, we seek to present how, through codicological, paleographic and text edition practices, one can understand more deeply historical and social facts, from the perspective of the dominant thought of the time: eugenics. It is a medical philosophy, coming from Europe, based on the improvement of human race, using therapies, medicines and other psychiatric interventions. We intend to show a number of practices related to philological science, for example, observing the different elements used to produce the document, such as support and instruments; decipher calligraphic types that are difficult to understand; analyze the letters morphology; examine the material document conditions that show its ways of circulation and transmission. The intention is to present part of a broader philological study that provides a source for studies in other fields of knowledge.