Grace Memorial Hospital and the American Presbyterian Mission in Brazil: sources for the history of healthcare, 1955-1971

The paper presents aspects of the history and archives of Grace Memorial Hospital, founded in 1926 in the former town of Ponte Nova, now Wagner, in the Chapada Diamantina region of Bahia state, Brazil, by the American Presbyterian missionary and doctor Walter Welcome Wood. The documents in question have been kept at the Universidade do Estado da Bahia, campus II, Alagoinhas, since the hospital closed down definitively. They constitute a source of research for different areas of scholarship, especially the history of healthcare in Brazil. The documents are used in analyses of the incidence of diseases, medical treatments, and other care given to a population that had no access to other institutions working in this area.