“Everything was prohibited, only death was not prohibited!!”:

restrictions to office of the dead during the yellow fever epidemic in Rio de Janeiro (1848-1851)

Abstract

Faced with the serious epidemic of yellow fever that devastated the city of Rio de Janeiro between the end of 1849 and the middle of 1850, a series of measures was implemented by the imperial government, with the support of hygienists, with a view to reducing the number of patients and deaths. From the analysis of the hygienist legislation, the synodical constitutions of Bahia, newspaper articles and parish death records of four urban parishes of the Court, we seek to identify how the sanitary devices imposed by the imperial government interfered in the dynamics of the traditional practice of office of dead, considered by the ecclesiastical hierarchy as sacred, clerical and parochial jurisdiction, arousing reactions from the Catholic clergy of the Court and leaving marks beyond the epidemic context.

ARK CAICYT: https://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s16688090/ai178vqm1