A monument to Lazarus: the evolution of the Leprosy Hospital of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Soon after Pedro Alvares made landfall there in 1500, Europeans and African slaves introduced leprosy into Brazil. This study affirms that by 1740 the city of Rio de Janeiro had about three hundred people with leprosy roaming the streets. With a population of less than 25,000 those so cursed suffered high visibility and scorn. In 1741, G¿mes Freire de Andrade, Rio de Janeiro's benevolent and energetic governor, created at his personal expense the first haven for lepers in the city of Rio de Janeiro. With crude facilities for only a few, social reaction that translated into political pressure continued for a final solution to the perceived escalation of the city's leprosy problem and in 1763 officials established the Leprosy Hospital of Rio de Janeiro. This is the story of that institution presented with a commitment to place its history into the broader philosophical matrix of the society in which it existed. This study contributes to the history of medical services in Rio de Janeiro in the all-inclusive sense of nursing, medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical and also focused on the cost and quality of care in the hospital. This high profile hospital had a role in the genesis of Brazilian scientific institutions and the country's public health, or as it was called ¿hygienic movement.¿