November 2020
Reports about health conditions in 19th century Rio de Janeiro are already well known by historians. At the time of the arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family, tropical diseases became a matter of great concern for the Crown, who was eager to turn the new capital of the Portuguese Empire into a tropical Lisbon.
Over the course of the century, cholera and, above all, yellow fever, have been prominent not only on the government’s agenda, but also in the popular imagination. However, in addition to these diseases, there were others that did not acquire the same prominence but were also part of the city life.
The Doctor (1890), by Sir. Luke Fildes/ Tate Gallery, London
The scorching tropics: fevers and public health in Brazil during the Joanine period, 1808-1821, by Ricardo Cabral de Freitas, Post-doctoral researcher at PPGHCS (COC / Fiocruz) explores how fevers affected social life in Brazil in the early nineteenth century and the efforts to establish medical knowledge about fevers in tropical environments.
The research showed that despite the yellow fever’s role, the population of the capital was also affected by several feverish manifestations that victimized individuals from practically all social strata. Among the high court circles, less than a year after the transfer of the Family to Brazil, Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro lamented the death of Conde da Ponte, governor of Bahia, caused by a “continuous fever”. In 1812, the Infante Dom Pedro Carlos de Bourbon e Bragança was a fatal victim of a “slow nervous fever”, while D. Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho was taken by a “malignant fever” also in the same year.
The author shows, however, that the diagnosis of fevers was not always a simple task, as its identification and treatment were still the subject of intense debate in medical circles both in Brazil and in Europe.
In this sense, the feverish manifestations found in the tropics represented an extra challenge to the European training of most of the doctors installed in the new capital.
References:
A SAÚDE PUBLICA NO RIO DE DOM JOÃO. Rio de Janeiro: Senac, 2008.
MARROCOS, Luiz Joaquim dos Santos. Cartas de Luiz Joaquim dos Santos Marrocos, escritas do Rio de Janeiro à sua família em Lisboa, de 1811 a 1821. In.: Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro.v.55. Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educação, 1939.
HAMLIN, Christopher. More than hot: a short history of fever. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
See our latest issue: vol.27 no.3 July/Sept. 2020
