["The 'asylum', an undeniable need in social organization": questions about the commitment questionnaire at the São João de Deus Asylum].

The article relies on a collection of documents located at the Bahia State Archives and the city of Salvador's Santa Casa da Misericórdia Archives to gain an understanding of the history of asylums and of psychiatry in Bahia. The analysis is centered on one of the tools applied in taking anamneses, designed and employed by Bahian alienists at the São João de Deus Asylum in Salvador, Bahia, starting when the institute opened its doors in 1874. In a hermeneutic effort to view the symbolism of the past in light of the present, the article uses twenty of these questionnaires as a way of analyzing medical knowledge of madness and its treatment and further of identifying the methods devised for guiding daily life in an asylum.