In 1814, physician Antônio Gonçalves Gomide published a medical report in which he offered a critical analysis of the manifestations of a beata (holy woman), Germana Maria da Purificação, who lived in Minas Gerais between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The doctor disagreed with the examination performed by two surgeons, who declared that the state of the beata was "supernatural." The present article analyzes the doctor's report and situates his view of the holy woman's pathology. The text was one of the first ever published on mental medicine and as such stands both as one of the foundational writings of a field that emerged in Brazil in the nineteenth century and also as a valuable source in understanding the formation of medical knowledge in this country.
medical report; catalepsy; Antônio Gomide (c.1770-1835); mental medicine; Brazil