This article analyzes a debate brought to the public arena by Jornal do Commercio newspaper in August and September 1899 involving two sanitation officials: Nuno de Andrade, Director-General of Public Health, and Jorge Pinto, Director of Hygiene and Public Welfare of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The issue in question was the measures taken by the federal government to prevent bubonic plague reaching Brazil from Porto, Portugal, where there was an epidemic. The theoretical framework for the analysis is Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of field, and Bruno Latour’s studies into scientific controversy.
bubonic plague; scientific controversy; sanitation policies; epidemic; Brazil