PIO DAMIÃO: A ENFERMAGEM COMO FORMA DE PARTICIPAÇÃO POLÍTICA

This socio-historical research was conducted in order to identify, describe and analyze Pio Damiao’sprofessional career. The study was based on direct sources such as notarized documents, meeting minutebooks, a public will, news articles of that period and documents from the Public Archive of Minas Gerais,Brazil. Chapters of books which portray the changes in the town and also mention Pio Damiao were used asindirect sources. The documents and publications were repeatedly studied in the search for informationand its relations. The subject studied was the first “nurse” to ever provide nursing care at Guaxupe’s CharityHospital, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He began his work in 1913, involving himself in the nursing, cooking andlaundry activities at the institution. He founded the Brazilian Black Front in Guaxupe, but, was dismissedfrom the Charity Hospital, supposedly for a religious matter – he was not Catholic – but continued toprovide healthcare services to the population at his own house until his sickness and death, in 1953. Descriptors : History of nursing; Professional practice; Biography