Article
The scorching tropics: fevers and public health in Brazil during the Joanine period, 1808-1821
Ardentes trópicos: febres e saúde pública no Brasil joanino
Registro en:
FREITAS, Ricardo Cabral de. The scorching tropics: fevers and public health in Brazil during the Joanine period, 1808-1821. História, Ciência, Saúde - Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, v. 27, n. 3, p. 1-17, set. 2020.
1678-4758
10.1590/s0104-59702020000400002
Autor
Freitas, Ricardo Cabral de
Resumen
Although fevers (with the exception of yellow fever) have not yet been fully explored by the historiography of Brazilian health, they were almost inevitable in nineteenth-century Brazilian society, affecting huge portions of the population. Their victims suffered from a wide variety of symptoms, and identification and treatment of these symptoms were the object of intense debates in medical circles. The Luso-Brazilian intelligentsia considered European medical debates as well as their own clinical experiences and attempted to provide answers in a flurry of publications. Even so, the manifestations of fever in the tropics presented a challenge that lay beyond their European training, forcing them to combine experiences acquired in different parts of the Empire to comprise specific knowledge on tropical fevers.