Sept 2015
The Conquest of Yellow Fever, painting by Robert Thom showing yellow fever commission members in Cuba.
image © Collection of the University of Michigan Health System, Gift of Pfizer, Inc., UMHS.37. Downloaded from www.historyofvaccines.org
In the nineteenth century Europe, one of the most contested debates in medicine revolved around the theories of contagion and of miasmas. The same happened in early twenties in Brazil regarding to yellow fever. According to the miasmas theorists, certain diseases developed as they adapted to specific environmental conditions, such as temperature and unhealthy living conditions – lack of sanitation, drainage, drinking water and personal cleanliness.
In contrast to this theory, the contagionists argued that diseases spread through contact with a sick person. They were in favor of isolating the individual in order to control the disease and prevent epidemics.
A similar debate could be seen in São Paulo Press. This was the topic of the research Theories about the propagation of yellow fever: the scientific debate in the São Paulo press between 1895 and 1903, written by Soraya Lódola and Edivaldo Góis Junior, of the University of Campinas (Unicamp). They did a documentary research collecting articles of newspapers and journals published in São Paulo between 1895 and 1903, a time that saw high indices of the disease in Brazil.
Most of the articles published in the mainstream press at the time were written by the physicians themselves. They were the ones who provided the information and lit the fires of controversy surrounding the debates with regard to diseases. In this debate, it was observed an influence of ideologies and intense struggles for power.
Even though the theory of miasmas lingered on regarding the transmission of yellow fever through water, in the context of debate with various differing theories of the propagation of yellow fever linked to bacteriology, the latter prevailed.
Lódola, Soraya and Góis Junior, Edivaldo. Theories about the propagation of yellow fever: the scientific debate in the São Paulo press between 1895 and 1903, 1895-1903. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Set 2015, vol.22, no.3, p.687-704. ISSN 0104-5970.
Read the full issue of HCSM (vol.22 no.3 Rio de Janeiro jul./set. 2015).
See articles about yellow fever already published in HCS – Manguinhos:
Alcalá Ferráez, Carlos. De miasmas a mosquitos: el pensamiento médico sobre la fiebre amarilla en Yucatán, 1890-1920. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Mar 2012, vol.19, no.1, p.71-87. ISSN 0104-5970
Mónica García, Claudia. Las ‘fiebres del Magdalena’:medicina y sociedad en la construcción de una noción médica colombiana, 1859-1886. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Mar 2007, vol.14, no.1, p.63-89. ISSN 0104-5970
Caponi, Sandra. El veneno y el mosquito: aspectos epistemológicos de la etiología y la profilaxis de la fiebre amarilla. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Oct 2000, vol.7, no.2, p.251-282. ISSN 0104-5970
