Have we learned from the mistakes of the past? Segregation of leprosy patients until the twentieth century
Patrícia Duarte DEPS, Brunella de A. FREITAS, Cícero D. CHICON, Larissa C. CASER, Líbia A. MENDES, Marianna M. SIQUEIRA, Luciana QUINTELA, Manoel A. CATARINA
Original title: Será que aprendemos com os erros do passado? Segregação dos pacientes portadores de hanseníase até o século XX
Published in
Keywords: Colony hospital, Human rights, Leprosy, Segregation.
Hansen’s disease, also known as "leprosy" in Brazil until the end of the 60s in the last century, is an infectious disease of low contagiousness. Once the cause was unknown, in Medieval Age, leprosy was a disease related to divine punishment, and leprosy patients were stigmatized and isolated in "leper colonies". The suffering of those who were diagnosed with leprosy lingers to nowadays, and the current article brings events that occurred with carriers of the disease in Brazil until 1979 mainly. In the State of Espírito Santo was built Dr. Pedro Fontes Hospital, also known as Colony of Itanhenga, which was opened in 1937. That Colony Hospital worked for several decades as a place of compulsory isolation of leprosy patients. We show the vision of former leprosy patients and former staffs of Dr. Pedro Fontes Hospital, and former inmates of Alzira Bley Educational Establishment, a site dedicated to the segregation of children born from leprosy patients while hospitalized at Dr. Pedro Fontes Hospital. The article presents the theme to bring up the reflection about decisions made by the society that hurts the basic principles of human rights.
Pedro Fontes, the physician who discovered leprosy in Espírito Santo Province, Brasil
Patrícia D. DEPS, Rachel Bertolani do Espírito SANTO, Francisco E. Simão MERÇON
Original title: Pedro Fontes, o médico que descobriu a hanseníase no Estado do Espírito Santo, Brasil
Published in
Keywords: Colony Hospital, Colony of Itanhenga, Hospital Pedro Fontes, Leprosy, Segregation.
This biographical article deals with the figure of Pedro Fontes, a physician graduated in 1903 by the Faculdade de Medicina da Bahia, who came to the State of Espírito Santo in 1927 with the mission of evaluating the possible existence of people affected by leprosy in the State. After a few months of work all over the state, Pedro Fontes identified a large number of people affected by leprosy and triggered the local health authorities, alerting the need for a specific place for isolation and treatment of patients. Pedro Fontes participated actively, being a mentor with Dr. Heráclito Souza-Araújo, of the creation and construction of the Colony of Itanhenga, inaugurated in 1937, later becoming the Colony Hospital Pedro Fontes, institution responsible for housing people affected by leprosy that were hospitalized compulsorily until the middle 1960's.
