The article analyzes the Program to Eradicate Yaws, enforced in Brazil from 1956 through 1961. Following World War II, when antibiotics first came into use, it seemed there might be a method for eradicating treponematosis in a short time: a single-dose injection of penicillin. At a moment when priority was being placed on fighting rural endemic disease in Brazil, it became possible to organize a campaign against yaws. The article explores the initiatives undertaken by the National Department of Rural Endemic Diseases that revealed a malnourished, starving population, and called into question the very intentions behind the campaign and the day's concepts of health and development.
yaws; eradication; rural endemic diseases; malnutrition; Brazil
