Os médicos e os embates do cientificismo na obra de Eça de Queirós (1875-1888)

Abstract

Along the second half of the XIX century, the attention devoted to Science, which seemed to gain more space in Literature, grows considerably. Medicine was in ascension, and this has been of great importance in illness control, as well as in the reduction of premature deaths. Besides, doctors would still face, in spite of every effort, difficulties to establish socially, since people would still refer to healers, pharmacists and faith healers. Eça de Queirós, in this particular issue, portraits a diverse and valuable portrait of the Portuguese situation, taking into account Scientifics, putting it in discussion, together with the religious creed, both still with great prestige among the ordinary public at the time. A number of specialists see in Eça s work a major doctrinaire trait, and, in scientific studies they perceive only a opposition to religious creed. The analysis of the three novels which present doctors as secondary characters or protagonists show that the role of Scientifics was not only that in O Primo Basílio, O Crime do Padre Amaro as well as in Os Maias. Through the doctors present in the novels of the remarkably realist-naturalist phase of Eça (Julião, Dr. Gouveia and Carlos Eduardo) it is possible to notice how much Eça develops from more doctrinaire positions (as from the seventies) to more complex and comprehensive ideas (as from the eighties)