The article analyzes changes in curing practices between 1828 and 1855, mainly in Rio de Janeiro. This period saw academic physicians organizing themselves around the Faculty of Medicine, the Imperial Academy of Medicine, and specialized periodicals, while popular practitioners were simultaneously losing ground in the legalization of their activities. The text compares changes in laws and the actions of oversight agencies with the activities of non-officialized practitioners and the population's reliance on their services. What stands out are the conflicts stemming from academic medicine's attempt to gain ascendancy over other healing arts, which shows how hard it was for the former to achieve a monopoly within therapeutic activities.
history of the healing arts; institutionalization of medicine; Junta Central de Higiene Pública; Brazil