Cholera
Epidemic
As it arrived in the 1850s, cholera cemented national officials’ understanding that the country was not immune to global epidemics. The enslaved and the poor constituted most of its victims.
EXPOSURE, RACE & SOCIAL POSITION
3000 VICTIMS & THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL POSITION, RACE & CHOLERA
Exposure, Race & Social Position
In the capital of Pernambuco alone it killed
approximately 3,000 people in a few months,
and between 17,000 and 35,000 in the entire
province in 1856.
Photo by Christiano Junior between 1864-65 of an enslaved woman who worked selling goods.
source: Brasiliana Fotográfica
The free poor and the enslaved in the northern part of Brazil were mostly affected. People infected with the bacteria disembarked in Para from a vessel that had left the city of Porto, Portugal in 1855.
IMPACT AND SYMPTOMS
CHOLERA WAS THE MOST FEARED DISEASE OF THE 1800s.
Impact & Symptoms
Cholera was the most feared disease of the 1800s,
especially among people from the lower sectors.
Anyone aware of its symptoms had a clear reason to feel that way.
Painting by François-René Moreau, 1867 of the emperor Pedro II visiting cholera victims at the Holy House of Mercy, Rio de Janeiro.
source: Agência Senado
Its onset was brutal and death could happen in a matter of days: after ingesting the bacteria that caused it, diarrhea, muscular spasms, profuse vomiting and as a consequence, extreme dehydration, led to great pain and the collapse of the victim.
Cholera by Dr. Robert Weimar Froriep, Symptome der asiatischen cholera (1832). “Cholera Online: A Modern Pandemic in Texts and Images,”
source: NIH- US National Library of Medicine.
When cholera hit Brazil in the 1850s no
one knew what the disease was or how to cure it.
By then, cholera had caused despair in Asia and Europe
and arrived in Brazil during its third wave.
Its main target: the poor and the enslaved.
TRANSMISSION & ARRIVAL
CONTAMINATED WATER, IMPOVERISHED CONDITIONS, AND THE POOR WHO SUFFERED
Transmission & Arrival
Because cholera was a disease transmitted via
contaminated water, those living in
impoverished conditions were usually the
most affected.
List of enslaved cholera victims, their place of origin and place of death in February, 1856.
source: Diario de Pernambuco, February 20, 1856, p. 3 ed. 45.
Whether in London or Recife, poor diet and
living conditions threatened those at the
bottom of the social hierarchy. In Brazil,
cholera killed tens of thousands of people
between 1855 and 1856.
EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS
THE LACK OF UNDERSTANDING ABOUT CHOLERA & THE ABOUNDING EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS
Experimental Treatments
Cholera was the most feared disease of the 1800s,
especially among people from the lower sectors.
Anyone aware of its symptoms had a clear reason to
feel that way.
Doctors also made use of contradicting treatments such as: opium, laxatives, and saline solutions, as well as a plant called ipecacuanha, which induced vomiting.
Doctors also made use of contradicting treatments such as: opium, laxatives, and saline solutions, as well as a plant called ipecacuanha, which induced vomiting.
Even though doctors were suspicious of popular methods, during times of great uncertainty they could become more open to different healing techniques. For example, the use of lime juice, accredited to indigenous peoples in the Amazon region, was incorporated by many doctors at the time as a viable course of treatment against cholera.
