“O último lugar por onde passa o vento”: memórias do isolamento compulsório, Hospital-Colônia do Bonfim (1936-1985)

Abstract

This work aims to represent, through the memory of what was the Hospital-Colony do Bonfim 1936-1985 in São Luís, in view of oral reports collected from egresses of the colony, and especially the mechanisms of power exercised within the scenario that encompasses medicine and politics as Two strands almost inseparable. Since the existing sanitary code in Maranhão aimed to exclude those affected by leprosy, removing them as socially, removing them from the family and isolating them in a casing that is beyond the walls and fences used to contain the inmates. There were a number of rules and norms established within the colony, and any other attitude that escaped those rules would be subject to punishment. The compulsory isolation of the lepers is a unique way to contain an endemic and maintain a safe population of São Luís, being a practice very defended by doctors well-known like Achilles Lisbon and with wide acceptance of the population seen as healthy. With the aim of sweeping the disease, the State, through a kind of social hygiene, inaugurated in 1936 a Bonfim colony to receive the "morpheticos" and guarantee the health of the inhabitants of the city, more precisely of the center of São Luís