This article examines the relationship among public health, immigration, and epidemics, focusing on the immigrant ships affected by cholera, which arrived at the port of Rio de Janeiro in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The analysis is based on four immigrant ships, which should have remained in quarantine, but were forced to return trip to the ports of origin, because they had cholera on board. The article analyzes the efforts of health services to prevent ingress of diseases in the country and, at the same time, ensure the flow of goods and immigrant labor.
immigration; epidemics; port; public health; Rio de Janeiro; cholera
