In 1908 the Governor of the state of Amazonas, Affonso de Carvalho, ordered the installation of a place for the isolation of people with leprosy. The site for this was on the land of Umirisal, on the left bank of the Rio Negro, in the neighbourhood of the Hospital de Variolosos (hospital for small pox). Drs Miranda Leão and Alfredo da Matta attended to the patients, without relying on the Public Treasury.
In v. Sciencia Medica, VII, no. 4, Rio, 1929, Dr Matta described this asylum as a defence measure, although deficient and inadequate, of great advantage at the present time. It was funded by the State. Dr Matta offered medical assistance free of charge, both here and at Linha de Tiro.
From February 1908 to December 1921, seventy-five patients were sent to Umirisal; fifty-four of these people died during the same period, other escaped or were discharged, leaving just nine in 1922.
At this time, the site only consisted of two “barrações” [sheds]. The Serviço de Prophylaxia ordered the construction of forty-eight living quarters and an “officina” [workshop].
In October 1922, the patients at the asylum of Linha de Tiro were transferred to Umirisal.
(Araujo, H C S. ‘Contribuição á epidemiologia e prophylaxia da lepra no norte do Brasil: III.- A lepra no Estado do Amazonas’. Mem. Inst. Osw. Cruz, 1933:27 (3))
Umirisal closed down in 1930.
(Araujo, H C S. ‘A lepra e as organizações anti-leprosas do Brasil em 1936’. Mem. Inst. Osw. Cruz, 1937:32 (1) 114)