Life and Health

This chapter analyzes the first edition of the health magazine “Vida e Saúde” [Life and Health], published in January of 1939 by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church’s (SDAC) publisher, Casa Publicadora Brasileira. This periodical was released during the dictatorship of Estado Novo (1937–1945) and endorsed some of the eugenist and hygienist public policies of its time. Although the magazine did not advocate Adventist proselytism, it promoted the health message conveyed by the Adventist prophetess Ellen G. White, making this magazine a unique example of print media dedicated to questions of health guided by religious and creationist worldviews. It also highlights the importance of the Adventist print media as one of the hallmarks of this church in Brazil since its beginnings in the late nineteenth century.