A Tribute to Pain

the Epidemic of Malaria in the Low Jaguaribe-CE (1937-1942)

Abstract

This article aims to establish some levels of understanding about the malaria epidemic that occurred in the Lower Jaguaribe region between the years 1937 and 1942, based on three issues that, for us, emphasize in the first place plan. The first question concerns the actions / reactions of the Government of the State of Ceará in the face of the first reports of the epidemic outbreak, notified in the year 1937, mainly by the then Mayor of the municipality of União, Antônio Rocha Freitas, mainly through denunciations in the capital's newspapers, Fortaleza. During the serious health crisis in which the population of Jaguar lived, especially in the two first years of the epidemic, 1937 and 1938, it was notorious, through the press, the constant exchange of accusations between the Mayor of the city of União and the Government state, represented by Governor Meneses Pimentel. The second question addresses the investments by the Brazilian and North American governments of high sums of resources in combating the epidemic, through the Malaria Service of the Northeast - SMNE. Without intending to deepen the debate, we can say that authorities, especially American ones, feared that the epidemic could migrate to other territories in the Americas, putting projects at risk American government interventionists in a situation marked by the Second Great World War. The third question concerns assistance work of the priests, who were obliged to travel to different locations fulfilling
Catholic rituals and bringing supplies and medicines to the sick population.