Os Tratados de Polícia, fundadores da moderna saúde pública (1707-1856)

The participation of nurses in the hygiene movement is relatively recent in relation to the founding moments of modern public health to which we will refer. It is fundamental for contemporary public health nurses, within their role and competences, to analyze those facts within a conceptual framework allowing the clarification and structuring of their professional identity in the construction of the present and sketching of the future. The object of this study is to present briefly some treatises on the topic and, particularly, to analyze and discuss the «Tratado de Conservação da Saúde dos Povos» by Ribeiro Sanches (1756) and the «Tratado de Polícia Médica» by Freitas Soares (1818) that reflect the principles included in Nicolas Delamare’s work (1707). We have used the historical investigation method according to Foucault’s genealogy paradigm. These works provide a good illustration of the slow passage from the model of corporate governance to that of state governance, which began at the end of the Antigo Regime (old regime) and continued, with several setbacks, throughout the constitutional monarchy established by the revolution of 1820.