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Era of Epidemics
http://eraofepidemics.squarespace.com
Era of Epidemics documents an ongoing investigation into an unusual and devastating period of epidemics that struck Brazil during the 1800s. This research, supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Grant, aims to map epidemic disease (yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague) and the common endemic afflictions (tuberculosis, rheumatism, parasitic worms) within the Brazilian Empire during the second half of the nineteenth century. The website displays some promising tools, methods, and approaches to spatial history and the history of medicine that are under development at several research universities. Finally, I hope that this historical work will make a contribution to our imperfect understanding of the etiology of common tropical diseases.
- Added on: Sep 18th, 2008
- Country: United States
- Language: English
Recent Posts
One Day of Deaths in Rio de Janeiro
"Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro Address Locator," Stanford Spatial History Lab and Cecult (UNICAMP), 2009. This map shows the location of 18 men, women and children who died on October 1, 1884 in Rio de Janeiro. These obits we...
Brazil's Era of Epidemics
This is from my final report, submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities. To see the full report, click here. During the first half of the nineteenth century, there is little evidence of major epidemic activity beyon...
Top Causes of Death in Porto Alegre, 1850s and 1870s
I am happy to see that the first results of my research on disease and health in nineteenth century Brazil has been published by The Americas here. In this article, I argue that enslaved and free people were largely killed by the same things. I make ...
The Archive of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro in Rio
This week I am exploring the collection at the Instituto Historico e Geografico Brasileiro (IHGB) in Rio de Janeiro. This past month I have been busy with class preparations and a paper on the internal slave market for LASA, but I am fi...
Yellow Fever's Evolution in the Western Hemisphere
Yellow Fever Outbreaks, 1800-1900 from Ian Read on Vimeo. As far as I know, this is the first map to show regional yellow fever outbreaks during the nineteenth century, and certainly the first of its kind to be animated. I recommend you enlarge...
The History of Brazilian Health and Disease in Textbooks
Today I intend to look how the “era of epidemics” is represented by popular textbooks on Brazilian history. I find that what one might call the “popular authoritative history of Brazil” says far too little about health, overe...
Interesting subject matter .... and very informative.
Posted: January 14th, 2009 | More Reviews From Melisende | Report This Comment