O Porto e as epidemias: saúde e higiene na imprensa diária em períodos de crise sanitária, 1854-56, 1899 e 1918

Abstract

ln times of sanitary crisis in Oporto, such as the cholera morbus epidemic of 1854-56, the bubonic plague in 1899 and the 1918 exanthematic typhus, pneumonic flu and smallpox epidemies, which killed huge percentages of the population, newspapers are important sources to access how scientific knowledge was divulged in a country with specialized professionals who were at the same level as the ones in the most advanced countries in the world. A database of 6.700 news, medical reports and advertisements reveals the state of the art of medical and pharmaceutical sciences in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the way it was divulged to an unspecialized audience and the solutions presented by doctors and sanitary authorities.