BRAZILIAN ILLNESSES: SPIX AND MARTIUS’S OBSERVATIONS ON THE SANITARY CONDITIONS OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY RIO DE JANEIRO

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the city of Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century through the reports produced by the Bavarian naturalists Johann Baptiste von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, establishing an overview of the sanitary conditions of Rio de Janeiro in 1817, focusing the object of research on the diseases that most affected the inhabitants. To meet the above proposition, we chose sources centered on the universe of Natural History and the History of Health Sciences, using bibliographic and documentary methodology. For this purpose, we approached the descriptions of diseases conceived by the two naturalists, as well as medical sources produced in the 19th century in Brazil