The Politics of Disease Control: Yellow Fever and Race in Nineteenth Century Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

During the first half of the nineteenth century, as cholera and yellow fever epidemics ravaged the Old and the New World alike, Brazil seemed to enjoy the reputation of being a remarkably salubrious country. In spite of its geographical position, its climate and the abundance of those elements that prevailing medical wisdom considered conducive to the more aggravated forms of disease, the fact was that Brazil long remained free of the two most visible scourges of the times.