Circulation of medical books in the Public Library of Bahia: 1811‑1818

Abstract

The subject of the present article is the first Brazilian public library, which was devised by Pedro Gomes Ferrão Castelo Branco, Alexandre Gomes Ferrão and Francisco Agostinho Gomes, with the collaboration of the Count of Arcos. Once the Portuguese King John VI authorized its operation, the Royal Library sent books to it as a donation. Also, Bahia citizens engaged in the library development and contributed books to it. The present article describes a part of the results of the study of two documents that list the books in the Public Library of Bahia from 1811 to 1818, more particularly, those dealing with medicine. Thus, the aim of this article is to evidence some facets of the production of medical literature and the state of the art in medicine that called the attention of a particular social group.