"Estão cobertas de vírus e quase moribundas" : seca, saúde e doenças na Parahyba do Norte (1877-1880)

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the living and health conditions of the population of Paraíba do Norte between 1877 and 1880, within the context of the so-called "Great Drought" of 1877-1879. Situated within the field of the History of Health and Disease, the research investigates the main measures of healthcare, food, and housing assistance directed at both the resident population and those in displacement, analytically understood here as migrants, both affected, albeit in different ways, by the effects of the drought. The study problematizes the representations constructed about these migrants in administrative, medical, and journalistic sources, as well as hygiene standards, healing practices, and the main causes of death during this period. We also consider the migratory flows from the Sertão region to the other mesoregions of Paraíba and, subsequently, the return movements to the interior from 1880 onwards, as well as public policies to combat droughts, such as the construction of dams and emergency support centers, like infirmaries, hospitals, and colonial settlements. The analysis engages with the New Cultural and Social History, mobilizing concepts such as social representations, to understand how migrants were portrayed in the sources; biopolitics, to examine the mechanisms of control over collective health; and political cultures, to interpret the government's actions and discourses in the face of the crisis. The concept of networks of sociability and experience is used to identify family and institutional ties and work relationships formed in this context. The methodological approach is anchored in Historical Demography, especially in the systematic use of Parish Death Registers, which make it possible to reconstruct age profiles, mortality patterns, and the effects of drought on the most vulnerable social groups. This set of sources is complemented by medical reports, correspondence, hospital statistical maps, administrative documents, and periodicals from the time. By broadening the scope to the year 1880, the dissertation demonstrates that the effects of the drought extended beyond its climatic end, revealing the persistence of diseases, the precariousness of living conditions, and the limitations of public assistance policies in the post-drought period. In this way, the work contributes to historiography by highlighting the drought as a historically produced social and sanitary crisis, marked by profound inequalities and experiences of illness, suffering, and resistance.