Entre agulhas e mãos: a "medicina chinesa" no Brasil da década de 1970

This article aims to understand the ways in which Chinese medicine was portrayed in the Brazilian press during the transnational context of counterculture in the 1970s. It seeks to analyse the social representations built around Chinese medicine, the dissemination of this medical rationale, main concepts, as well as its notions of healthcare, illness and healing. Focusing on manuals, newspaper articles and advertisements about acupuncture and daoyin aimed at the general public, we will look at the role multiple actors, beyond the biomedical community, played in the formation of Chinese medicine in Brazil. We selected printed manuals that also reverberated in the general press, especially in two wide-circulation newspapers, the Jornal do Brasil and Diário de Pernambuco. The several notions of health, illness and healing linked to ideas of tradition and modernity stand out as an essential paradox in the definition of Chinese medicine in Brazil.