Pre-transitional mortality indicators for a Brazilian region in the - PDF document

Pre-transitional mortality indicators for a Brazilian region in the 19th century Dayane Julia Carvalho Dias – Unicamp – dayanejuliacd@gmail.com Luciana Conceição de Lima – UFRN – limamarx@gmail.com Luana Junqueira Dias Myrrha – UFRN – luanamyrrha@gmail.com 1) Introduction This article is a demographic study of mortality in Rio Grande do Norte (currently a state placed at Northeast of the Brazil) during the nineteenth century. It contributes to a still scarce set of studies in Brazil that are dedicated to the pre-demographic transition which was marked by the occurrence of epidemic diseases. In Brazil, the 19th century was marked by the occurrence of epidemic diseases due to the poor environmental and medical-sanitary conditions of the time (CHALHOUB, 1996; DINIZ, 1997; MARTINS, 2012). The most effective control of these diseases by the national government would occur only a century later, more specifically in the 1940s, when explicit policies of public health and basic sanitation contributed decisively to the beginning of the transition of mortality in the country (PRATA, 1992; WOOD & CARVALHO, 1998; ALVES, 2002). Thus, until this period that starts the process of demographic transition in the country, infectious diseases played an important role in the structure of causes of death of the population. At the beginning of the 20th century, infectious diseases accounted for 60% of the causes of death in the North Region, 49% in the Northeast Region, 43% in the Southeast Region, 40% in the Central-West Region, and 39% in the Southern Region. The external causes were not significant, representing only 2% of deaths in areas such as the North, Northeast and South regions (PRATA, 1992). Infectious diseases reach younger and younger people, especially those with unfavorable socioeconomic conditions (FRENK et al, 1991). This article is divided into five sections. The first one presents a brief overview of the mortality in the Rio Grande in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The second section describes the methodology used (materials and methods), the discussion of the main results is found in the third section, the fourth section presents the conclusions of this study, and finally, the fifth present the discussion about the results obtained. 1

2) The context of mortality in Rio Grande do Norte in the 19th century: socioeconomic and sanitary conditions Important transformations involved Rio Grande do Norte between the end of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century: replacement of the Portuguese commercial monopoly by the commercial freedom highlighted by the presence of the English economy; the transition from colony to politically independent nation; and the need for political reorganization, with a view to maintaining the monopoly of large landowners and, at the same time, ensuring territorial unity (MONTEIRO, 2002). However, amidst these important changes, the succession of droughts plagued the captaincies of the north. Between 1791 and 1793 occurred the greatest drought of the eighteenth century, reaching not only the captaincy of Rio Grande do Norte but also Ceará, Pernambuco, Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Paraíba and Piauí. In addition to the pests of locusts, snakes and rats, droughts were accompanied by epidemics such as smallpox (popularly known as bladder), producing even more dead (Guerra, 1981). During the provincial period, the health conditions of Rio Grande do Norte were not different from the other Brazilian provinces. The Empire of Brazil suffered constant epidemics and, in this context, a series of measures were taken to combat them, initially in the Court, Rio de Janeiro, and later in the other provinces of the Empire. The action of the provincial government was no more than a count of the victims, since the medical conditions of the population were precarious. Medical performance was limited, since it was difficult to reach underserved areas in a short period of time, and the scientific knowledge offered at the time was insufficient (MATTOS, 1985). In the case of the province of Rio Grande do Norte, the state of health was precarious, with irregular sanitary conditions that facilitated the spread of infectious diseases (ARAÚJO and MACEDO, 2011). In the second half of the 19th century, more specifically, the province of Rio Grande do Norte was affected by epidemic outbreaks of cholera-morbidity, yellow fever and smallpox (SANTOS, 2013). The Charity Hospital, built in the city of Natal in 1856, "was a house of suckers for 40 sick men and as many women. Media 176 by 56 palms wide and occupied all the masons and carpenters of Natal "(CASCUDO, 1984). Even considered a great achievement, because before the capital had only a military ward and a pharmacy (BRAZIL, REPORT OF 2

PRESIDENT OF PROVINCE, 1856), the place was described by Pedro Velho (health inspector at the time) in 1886, as: "In the conditions in which the Hospital is nowadays, it admires even how surgical operations are successfully performed there, such is the risk that an operative is in being in that infected environment" (CASCUDO, 1984). This description demonstrates the conditions of the only existing hospital in Natal, which, according to Cascudo (1984): "the poverty of the funds explained the misery of the environment, but did not justify the filth indignantly recorded in some administrative documents." Cascudo (1984) refers to the statement made by Vice-President Vicente Inácio Pereira, the first doctor in 1879: "The most filthy chapel, in complete abandonment of all the laws of the most coarse hygiene, can not take to the benefit of these unfortunate, by the state of penury in which the coffers of the province are found". 3) Metodology The data sources used were statistical population maps (population and death data) and data from the Census of 1872 and 1890 (population data). The statistical maps refer to the years 1801 and 1805 were deposited in the Historical Archive Ultramarino de Lisboa (AHU) and made available for purposes of this article by the project Counting Colonial Populations: Demography and the use of statistics in the Portuguese Empire, 1776-1890 New from Lisbon. States have always needed to enumerate, measure, quantify their populations, wealth, and resources in order to know the nation through statistics. Initially, this was due to the recruitment of soldiers into wars and then to legislating and administering many aspects of the public and private spheres. With the development of the modern world and capitalism, the difficult issues of birth, mortality, longevity, public health, housing, migration, among others emerged (SENRA, 2006). The first census survey of Brazil occurred in the year 1776 and constituted a landmark of change for the proto-statistical period (BOTELHO, 1998). This survey was carried out by means of population maps in the management of the Marquis of Pombal, which brought a modernizing character inspired by the European ideas of population survey (PAIVA et al, 2012). It aimed to 'know the Brazilian reality' to promote the colony's agricultural renaissance and the production of raw materials for the industrialization of Portugal (BOTELHO, 1998). 3