Hygiene and the Underclass in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro

By the middle of the 19th Century, important urban and social reforms were underway in Latin America, which focused on improving hygiene in the cities. In this essay I will discuss the many reforms that were made to improve hygiene in the Rio de Janeiro and how most were unsuccessful, who’s fault the hygiene issues really were, how domestic servants color made them the guilty ones of carrying diseases, and how their lives became to be after they were to forgo examinations monthly.

Beginning in 1850, disease was underway again in Rio de Janeiro after being absent since 1686. In just three years, 6,500 people died of Yellow Fever. The fever disappeared for some time only to return again in the 1890’s where 14,944 died of the disease. Between 1850 and 1901, 56,000 people died of Yellow Fever alone. In response to all the diseases, the Central Board of Public Hygiene was created and they had to act fast in order to prevent any more deaths. The Central Board of Public Hygiene’s job was to lay plumbing underground that would be the underground sewage system. This reform was supposed to eliminate “waste” on the streets and to have cleaner water throughout the city. Instead, disease worsened as the years went on. Of course, like most issues, someone was to blame and those who were blamed were the servants that lived on the streets and worked in the houses. It was obvious that since they were living in the filth they were clearly spreading the disease and when they would work in the houses of their servants they would pass the disease down to the children and the rest of the household. This eventually led to the destruction of cortiços.

Cortiços were living quarters for the poor. They were set up as a small community themselves and a...

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...urse the babies. Lives of servants were greatly affected during this time because they suddenly had to go about living a careful life in a filthy city without catching a disease.

In conclusion, changes were made for the better, however after the above examples, it only made matters worse. It seemed as though no matter what reforms were made, they always failed. Domestic servants during this time were more of a victim instead of a disease transporter. Rio de Janeiro was simply behind its time and could not handle the amount of people living there. The lower class or domestic servants, who worked for the upper class, were at a sheer disadvantage because of how they were forced to live.

Works Cited

Graham, Sandra Lauderdale. House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro. (University of Texas Press, 1992)