Barbacena
Barbacena is situated in the Serra da Mantiqueira, 169 km from the capital of minas gerais, and has around 124.600 inhabitants.
This county with pleasant mountain climate, with average low temperatures below Brazilian standards, had the nickname of “the city of the insane” for many long years. This title was given because of seven psychiatric hospitals. The reason for having so many mental institutions in the same territory must be an old belief: designated by doctors at the time that the mountain air was beneficial for those who had mental illnesses. In this climate, the insane would supposedly be less withdrawn, and this would facilitate treatment.
Another version of the story states that, at the loss of the political battle to Belo Horizonte being the capital of Minas Gerais, it won, as a consolation price so many psychiatric hospitals, of which 3 still remain in the city.
The biggest hospital, today managed by the hospital institution of Minas Gerais (FHEMIG), was opened in 1903, in an immense rural area (aprox. Eight million square meters), in Caveira farms’ land, which belonged to Joaquim Silvério dos Reis- the ‘snitch’ in a famous revolt in Colonial Brazil. The lodging of this hospital had previously harbored a rest clinic, and a tuberculosis rehabilitation center. It was an establishment for the rich. With the sanatorium’s bankruptcy, the building was occupied by a psychiatric hospital, that was divided into those who could pay and paupers. The well known “larbotheraphy” was used at the time as treatment to insanity, under the belief that it was necessary to avoid idleness which was harmful to the madman’s spirit. Through work, the insane would no longer be ineffective, allowing their aggressiveness to be channeled and eventually cured. The poor patients were forced to work on monotonous repetitive labor, without payment. They would do heavy farming labor in the hospitals surroundings, manufacture bricks, dolls, carpets and other products that were sold or consumed internally.
