Frascos de vidro: uma abordagem sobre a produção e comércio de Medicamentos e de seus contentores em Pelotas. (Intervalo temporal 1800 – 1950)

Abstract

This work aims to discuss aspects of production and consumption of medicines in the city of Pelotas (Rio Grande do Sul) in the 19th century and half of the 20th, taking as a sample the glassy material culture rescued at the sites PSGPe 1 – Casa 8, PSGPe 2 – House 2 and PSGPe 3 – Praça Cel. Pedro Osório. The three sites are related to the first occupations in the city's second subdivision in the 19th century, today recognized as the Historic Center of Pelotas. In addition to the selection, analysis and identification of medicine bottles, from the perspective of an expository and argumentative work, the main healing practices carried out in Brazil in the 19th and mid-20th centuries, their precepts, political context of insertion and popularization of consumption were analyzed. The second subdivision was characterized as the new and future urban center, a result of the economic development that began to occur with the growth of charqueadas. Domestic use categories such as historical ceramics and stoneware rescued in the two residences confirm the consumption pattern of the economic and social elite of the time, while in the Praça, for public use, located in a low, humid area and a place for disposal, the Excavated deposits indicated greater simplicity of these products. However, glass artifacts related to medicine bottles at the three archaeological sites did not indicate differences that we can attribute to economic and social discrepancies. Both due to the contexts of the aforementioned occupations, as well as the data analyzed in the literature, the production and dissemination of medicines had great economic and social significance. The Theory of Humors, allopathy, homeopathy and academic medicine disseminated the art of healing, not only in advertisements, but also through a considerable number of publications such as manuals and family medical guides. After examining the entire vitreous collection from the three sites, we selected ten medicine bottles (fragments or whole) with some identification of the contents and/or manufacturer in high relief. From catalog 14 (PSGPe 1 – House 8) one piece; from catalog 18 (PSGPe 2 – House 2) one piece; from catalogs 27, 32 and 36 (PSGPe 3 – Praça Cel. Pedro Osório) eight pieces. With this reduced sampling of medicine bottles in the second batch, from the 19th century and the first fifty years of the 20th, insufficient for comparisons of consumption habits between elite residences and public remains in the square, we evidenced foreign origins of five products (one from France and four from the United States), and nationals, one from Porto Alegre and five from Pelotas. Medicines formulated and produced in Pelotas were predominant in collections from the PSGPe 3 site.