Palácio Tiradentes is the Legislative Assembly for the state of Rio de Janeiro. In its library (Biblioteca) are held records of parliamentary debates, published in the Anais da Câmara do Distrito Federal and Anais da Assembléia Legislativa do Rio de Janeiro, dated from 1950s onwards.

A list of the files related to leprosy in the library of Palácio Tiradentes can be accessed here (PDF, 28 pages).

Some of the notable documents in the archive are described below:

There are references to the hospital of Curupaití. After having visited the hospital, Armando da Fonseca, a town councillor for Rio de Janeiro, requested the formation of a commission of councillors to inspect patient conditions. The request had not been granted at the time of the assembly (13 May 1957). He had visited the colony and found conditions to be appalling. Equipment and medication were lacking and the food and hygiene were poor. A week later, the Council President, Hugo Ramos Filho, approved the suggestion of the commission and named seven councillors. Again, on 27 May 1957, conditions at Curupaití were denounced. Patients were developing severe eye conditions that could not be treated at the hospital. Pirapitingui sanatorium was named as having the best equipment for eye surgery in South America, and the best specialist in the field, Dr Milton Tavares. Appeals were made to Jânio Quadros, Governor of São Paulo, to make such treatment available to patients at Curupaití. By 4 June, Wilson Leite Passos, another councillor, was highlighting the Governor’s help for the patients at the hospital, as the eye treatment at Pirapitingui had been made available to them.

In June 1957, town councillor Manoel Novella Junior visited Santa Maria preventório, and reported on the need for support from the town council.

On 29 November 1957, a morning session recognised Eunice Weaver as a citizen of Rio de Janeiro, due to her service in helping leprosy patients.

On 30 November 1957, Wilso Leite Passos announced that leprosy was one of the greatest public health problems in Rio de Janeiro, and that the disease had developed rapidly over the previous ten years. Almost two thousand cases of the contagious form were registered during 1956. The construction of a new leprosarium on the estate of Brasília in Santa Cruz was defended as a worthwhile scheme. The land was bought by the prefecture in 1953 to this end, but work had not yet begun due to political problems. This was also the topic for debate on 6 December 1957, and the new leprosarium was intended for the overspill of patients from Curupaití. However, one councillor, Índio do Brasil, did not agree with the planned leprosarium, as Curupaití had room for expansion. There were people living on the intended site and he saw it as unjust to move them from their homes in order to build another leprosarium. Wilson Leite Passos commented on these views of his fellow councillor, saying that the number of people with leprosy in the city of Rio was too high for Curupaití to cope with, and that the land was bought for the very purpose of constructing a leprosarium, so it would be a grave mistake to oppose the work. Armando da Fonseca in turn criticised Wilson Leite Passos’ views, stressing the need to reconstruct Curupaití, not to build another leprosy institution.

On 27 November 1959, Nilo Romero, a councillor, praised the organisors of the Semana de Combate à Lepra [Anti-Leprosy Week], giving special mention to Ernani Agrícola, Souza Aguiar and Souza Araújo. Romero also stressed the need for health campaigns, and legislative, educative and socio-medical measures to combat the disease. On the same day, Horacio Franco informed the council that just a few days before, researchers in São Paulo had succeeded in isolating the leprosy bacillus. He praised Brazilian researchers for their successes and brilliance in the field of leprosy. At the Conference in Havana, the classification of the different types of leprosy as suggested by the Brazilian scientists was approved. During this session, Nilo Romero also described the functions of the “dispensário”, which included keeping under surveillance those patients confined to their homes, and the identification and notification of new cases. He also announced that the network of dispensaries was inadequate in view of the number of sufferers. Regarding the “preventórios”, he explained that this idea began in Hawaii. The first in Brazil was created in São Paulo by Alice Tibiriçá, called Santa Terezinha do Menino Jesus.

Entry created 28 October 2003; updated February 2016