A Revolta da Vacina

310 reis per 1 mouse, preferably dead. This is how early 20th century the young doctor Oswaldo Cruz ended the epidemic of bubonic plague in Rio de Janeiro. The experience was a success although some profiteers created rats in their backyards just to earn some change .

. . but his trajectory was easy.

In 1899 after studying microbiology in Paris, at the Pasteur Institute, he returns to Brazil determined to fight a series of diseases that killed thousands of people every year. The situation is complicated, including the economy. Some ships foreigners refuse to stop at our ports.

After the cruiser's crew Italian Lombardy was almost all decimated. Oswaldo starts his fight and rodents in the ports of Santos and Rio and controlling the outbreak of bubonic plague. Your fame spreads.

In 1903, he assumed the position of general director of public health with the challenge of with another epidemic, that of fever Yellow. A few days later, he took the attitude controversy. Displeased with traditional methods of sanitation, he Havana, capital of Cuba, to study with a city had ended the outbreak of the disease.

At that time, it was believed that the virus was transmitted by air or by the water, until the Cuban doctor Carlos Finley discovered that the enemy was another: the mosquito aedes aegypti. Oswaldo returns to Rio and begins to fight with what he has. It organizes a brigade of carts to clean outbreaks of mosquitoes, isolates patients in cubicles.

The press catches your foot but the number of people infected decreases rapidly. There was still one major challenge: to beat smallpox and the only remedy was the vaccine, still a novelty for the but already made in France a few decades ago from the virus of cow pox. The repercussion is negative.

Nobody wanted to put it inside the body. the disease virus, even more than one animal. Not even the intellectual Rui Barbosa.

But there was no way out. to contain the increasing number of dead. The Congress passes a law making compulsory vaccination.

The health brigades entering the homes and vaccinating people force. The revolt is general. Women refuse to show the arm to the vaccinators and much people living in unhealthy places have their houses demolished.

The conflict takes on gigantic proportions with shootings and break-breaking in all the parts of the city The cadets of the beach military school red discontented with the direction the republic had taken, seized chaos and tried to overthrow President Rodrigues Alves. The government reacts with iron hand and decrees state of siege and orders disgruntled and disgruntled rebels some unemployed for a forced labor in the state of Acre. In the face of intense popular pressure, President repeals the law of the vaccine is no longer mandatory.

But who I wanted to work, study or marry needed to get vaccinated. Over time, the number of contaminated plunges and people start looking for health posts. In soon, there would be no more cases of smallpox.

In 1907, Oswaldo Cruz receives the highest award in Germany health and public health of the time competing with more than 120 competitors Worldwide.