Franco da Rocha and the uses of labor in the mad-house

Abstract

This article deals with the different uses for the labor done by in-pacients during the first twenty years of the Asilo-Colôniade Juquery - the first asylum built in the State of São Paulo, in the end of the last century. After studying the articles published by the director of the madhouse, Dr. Francisco Franco da Rocha, MD, the author describes the following purposes for the work of the pacients; building the asylum, farming and breeding, treating alienation. Everything indicates that labor is used much more as a response to the circunstancial necessities ofthe institution than as a technical procedure dictated by science.