The Morality Present in the Hygienization processes: The Nurse as a Disciplinarian Element of the Bodies

The present philosophical essay aims to reflect on the intention to moralize the bodies through the processes of hygiene and on the nurse's role as a disciplining element. An analysis is carried out within the context of the hygienist ideal, establishing a dialogue with contemporary authors such as Foucault and Caponi. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, signs of the hygienist movement were observed in innumerable governmental actions in Brazil, whose aim was to replace the old moral with a new moral. Hygiene habits, when judged to be morally or socially undesirable by the nurse, should be corrected, taught, disciplined, and thus normalized. To perform the bath, it is necessary to strip the body, making it vulnerable. At that moment, the nurse has the ability to decide how she will exercise her power: whether in a liberating way or in a castrating and abusive way. Final Considerations: Reflections with a philosophical approach make us think beyond the obvious, pointing out ways for nurses to help the bodies to exercise their autonomy.