Brazilian physician born in Paracatu, Minas Gerais, who published a manual that can be presented as the first dedicated exclusively to childcare, containing useful notions for professionals and lay people: Treatise on Physical Education for Boys, for use by the Portuguese Nation, Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon (1790). While still a student, for his liberal ideas, he found himself convicted and imprisoned by the Court of the Inquisition. Graduated in medicine at the University of Coimbra (1786), he became a distinguished clinician in Lisbon.
He was a doctor at the Royal House and became its correspondent, in Lisbon, at the Oficina da Academia Real das Ciências (1790). He moved to Brazil (1817), landing in Rio de Janeiro accompanying the princess-consort Leopoldina, settling there. He died near Ubatuba, during a sea voyage from Santos to Rio de Janeiro. He was also the author of Elements of Higiene, Lisbon (1814), in three editions, and other valuable works, including a satire, O Reino da Stupidation (1785) and the scathing Medicina Teológica, Lisbon (1794).
Note that a new edition of the Physical Education Treaty would be produced many years later, by José Martinho da Rocha, in Nosso Primeira Childicultor, Rio de Janeiro, Livraria Agir Editora (1946). It should not be confused with a book with the same title, published (1791) by the Lisbon physician Francisco José de Almeida, Baron de Almeida (1756-1844), which was also published by the Royal Academy of Sciences, but with little success in the Brazil. Not to be confused with Colonel Francisco de Mello Franco, of the same family, deputy to the Legislative General Assembly, for Minas Gerais [1854-1856].
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
Order F - Biography - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/francisco-de-melo-franco.htm