TUDO É CONSTERNAÇÃO, MISÉRIA E DESESPERO: SECA E DOENÇAS NA PROVÍNCIA DA PARAHYBA NA DÉCADA DE 1870

Abstract

This study analyzes the search for and understands health and disease in the Province of Parahyba do Norte throughout the 1870s, especially in the context of the so-called “Great Drought” of 1877-1879. This drought brought several consequences: the high mortality rate, the increase in malnutrition and diseases that intensified, according to the migratory process of many underprivileged families, in search of better living conditions and subsistence, to urban centers that generate an overcrowding considered unhygienic, according to the medical hygienists of the time. To arrive at the results of this work, we consulted newspapers, reports, letters, statistical maps, among other sources; in addition to the historiographical analysis on the subject. In this way, we seek to understand, from the History of Health and Diseases, how the drought of 1877 impacted not only the living and hygiene conditions of the population, but also the economic, social and political scenario of the Province.