Dois «sonhadores práticos» no campo de reformas sociais de medicina: Tomás Judym e José Tomás de Sousa Martins

Abstract

After Romanticism, the mythical-legendary past was questioned by Positivist Science and the spirit of social reforms, gaining new literary contours in patriotically and politically committed works that were sensitive to the problems of society. The work of Stefan Żeromski (1864-1925), who in the first decades of the twentieth century was considered the greatest Polish novelist, caused the purely aesthetic function of Literature to lose ground, instigating the emotional side and social consciousness of its readers, their compassion and willingness to act. The protagonist of the novel Ludzie bezdomni (1900) (Homeless Men), Doctor Tomás (Tomasz) Judym, is a self-made man who, assuming responsibility for the misery of the masses of the proletariat (first in Paris, then in Warsaw, in Cisy and Silesia), renounces his own happiness and the love of Joaninha, and dedicates his life as a doctor to the poor and to the fight against social injustice. The nonconformity and commitment of Dr. Judym as the first «practical dreamer» of the social cause became proverbial in Polish, characterizing the romantic attitude free of financial gain in the time of capitalism’s unbridled progress. José Tomás de Sousa Martins (1843-1897) was a real «practical dreamer», an unparalleled figure in Portuguese Science, a physician and professor at the Medical-Surgical School of Lisbon, who fought tuberculosis free of charge. In 1910, Jaime Cortesão outlined the profile of Sousa Martins, emphasizing that in Philosophy he was positivist, materialist and determinist-fatalist, going far beyond the scientific superstition that took those who prized Science beyond the limits of reasonable, beyond the limit of mankind. In fact, Sousa Martins was a committed pasteurian and shared the scientific ideas of the French master. For Sousa Martins, Pasteur was one of the saints to be worshiped in the vast religion of Science. Dr. Tomás Judym and Sousa Martins entered, respectively, in Polish Literature and in the History of Public Health in Portugal as «lay saints», paradigmatic figures of action in the field of social reforms, physicians at the service of Man, who did not see in religion the way to their salvation, but rather in Science. And so the figures of the two «practical dreamers» become even more fascinating and recommendable to the presentation of the debate over the spirit of reforms and the (re)construction of modernity.