Hansen's disease in Maranhão in the 1930s: On the way to Colônia do Bonfim

Abstract

Some aspects of Hansen's disease and the health policy for those having it in Maranhão in the 1930s are pointed out. The resolution of the disease in that state followed the precept imposed by the centralizing national health policies developed in the Vargas period: greater sanitary vigilance of those having the disease and the construction of a compulsory isolation colony for the contagiously ill largely characterized the decade regarding the prophylaxis of what was then called leprosy. The discourses of Achilles Lisboa, the doctor who best expressed this period, are highlighted here, since they contributed to aggressively mold the public policies of exclusion directed to those having Hansen's disease in Maranhão.