Opúsculo dos Mortos-Vivos: estigma e representação da lepra em periódicos brasileiros de início do século XX

Abstract

This paper intends to analyze the leprosy representation in periodical publications from the early decades of the 20th century to understand its historical association with impurity and contagion archetypes, which resulted in analogies with the undead in the collective imagination. Through sources analysis and interpretation – namely newspapers and magazines from that period – it was perceived as commonplace to describe the bearers of Hansen’s disease not as sick people, but as objects of horror or monsters, and all sorts of pejorative epithets, referring to these individuals as fetid, rotting, and deformed beings, capable of fear inflicting and carrying out evil deeds. The association with the undead, specifically, dates back thousands of years, and refers to those in need to transfer their burden through contagion, that is, their impure condition. In face with the horror and threat that such disease allegedly posed to Brazil’s modernization, in early 20th century’s context, periodicals advocated for strict sanitary and social control measures, including segregation and confinement policies. Lepers were then understood as obstacles to modern society’s sanitation and hygiene goals; and Press was focused on reproducing bourgeoisie values, constantly reinforced by representations based on stigma and prejudice.