Devil’s choice: Ricardo Jorge, the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic and the pneumonization of plague, 1899-1933

Francisco Javier Martínez

doi:10.30827/dynamis.v45i1.33089

Autores/as

Francisco Javier Martínez Historia de la Ciencia, Universidad de Zaragoza https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0346-2038

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30827/dynamis.v45i1.33089

Palabras clave:

Ricardo Jorge, Spanish flu, pneumonic plague, Portugal, Organisation Internationale d’Hygiène Publique

Resumen

The Portuguese hygienist Ricardo Jorge gained some international recognition for his management of the plague outbreak that struck the city of Porto in 1899. However, it would be his experience of the “Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918-1920 that played a key role in his rejection of the rat-flea model of transmission then in force in favor of the greater relevance of interhuman trans mission. This paper aims to explain the evolution of his medical-epidemiological conception of plague, on one hand by analyzing Jorge’s institutional background in Portugal and within international sanitary organizations (Organisation Inter nationale d’Hygiène Publique) and on the other hand by examining his scientific contribution, based on epidemiological and historical data, to the “pneumoni zation” of the disease, especially in relation to emergence mechanisms of epi demic outbreaks (epidemiogenesis). In a series of publications running from 1919 to 1933, Jorge made key contributions to the global redefinition of one of mankind’s most dreaded scourges.

Descargas

Los datos de descargas todavía no están disponibles.

Citas

Abreu, Laurinda, “O último lazareto terrestre de fronteira: Vila Real de Santo António na ‘segunda temporada colérica’ (1885/1886)”, Revista Portuguesa de Història, LV (2024): 135-160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/0870-4147_55_5

Amaral, Isabel, coord., Percursos da Saúde Pública nos séculos XIX e XX – a propósito de Ricardo Jorge. Lisboa: CELOM, 2010.

Arnold, David. Pandemic India. From cholera to Covid-19. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197659625.001.0001

Barona, Josep Lluís. The Rockefeller Foundation, Public Health and International Diplomacy, 1920-1945. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315653679

“Bibliografia Ricardiana”. Accessed August 14, 2024. https://www.insa.min-saude.pt/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Bibliografia_RJ.pdf

Braga, António Augusto Gonçalves, “A conferência sanitária internacional de París de 1911-12,” Arquivos do Instituto Central de Higiene, II, fasc. 1 (1916): 17-65.

Bresalier, Michael, “Uses of a Pandemic: Forging the Identities of Influenza and Virus Research in Interwar Britain,” Social History of Medicine, 25, 2 (2011): 400-424. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkr162

Bresalier, Michael. “ ‘A Most Protean Disease’: Aligning Medical Knowledge of Modern Influenza, 1890-1914,” Medical History, 56, 4 (2012): 481-510. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2012.29

Chakrabarty, Pratik. Bacteriology in British India: Laboratory Medicine and the Tropics. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781580467919

Chernin, Eli. “Richard Pearson Strong and the Manchurian Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague, 1910-1911,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 44 (1989): 296-319. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/44.3.296

Coelho, Eduardo, Ricardo Jorge. O médico e o humanista. Lisboa-Barcelona-Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Luso-Espanhola, 1961.

Costa, Rui Manuel Pinto. Ricardo Jorge. Ciência, humanismo e modernidade. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-1532-5

Davis, John P. Russia in the time of cholera. Disease under Romanovs and Soviets. London: I.B. Tauris, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350987869

Delille, Maria Manuela Gouveia; Ramires, Isabel João. Correspondência. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos e Ricardo Jorge. Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-1821-0

Dias, José Pedro Sousa. “Medicina, ciência e laboratório,” in Sérgio Campos Matos, Jorge Ramos do Ó, eds., A Universidade de Lisboa nos Séculos XIX e XX. Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2013: 651-717.

Echenberg, Myron. Plague ports: the global urban impact of bubonic plague, 1894-1901. New York: New York University Press, 2007.

Evans, Nicholas H. “Blaming the rat? Accounting for plague in Indian colonial medicine,” Medical Anthropology and Theory, 3 (2018): 15-42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.5.3.371

Faria, José Alberto de. “Casos de peste en Lisboa en 1920,” Salubridad y asistencia social, 27 (1922): 449.

Farley, John. To cast out disease. A history of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195166316.001.0001

Fernandes Alves, Jorge; Carneiro, Marinha. “Saúde pública e política: do ‘Codigo Sanitario’ ao Regulamento Geral de 1901,” Cultura, Espaço e Memória, 5 (2014): 27-43.

Garnel, Maria Rita Lino. “Portugal e as Conferências Sanitárias Internacionais,” Revista da História da Sociedade e da Cultura, 9 (2009): 229-251. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/1645-2259_9_9

Greig, E. D. W. “Observations on the Pathology and Bacteriology of Influenza,” Indian Journal of Medical Research, 8, 2 (1920): 326-355.

Howard-Jones, Norman. The scientific background of the International Sanitary Conferences, 1851-1938. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1975.

Jorge, Ricardo. Souza Martins. Porto: Gazeta Médica do Porto, 1897.

Jorge, Ricardo. A peste no Porto, 1899. Seu descobrimento. Primeiros trabalhos. Porto: Typ. a vapor de Arthur José de Souza e Irmaos, 1899.

Jorge, Ricardo. Le bacilliféres de la Zaire et le système défensif contre le choléra par le contrôle bacteriologique. Lisboa: Tipografia Mendonça, 1911.

Jorge, Ricardo, A guerra e o pensamento medico. Lisboa: Sociedade das Ciências Médicas, 1915.

Jorge, Ricardo, A influenza. Nova incursão peninsular. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1918.

Jorge, Ricardo. La grippe. Lisbonne: Imprimerie Nationale, 1919.

Jorge, Ricardo, “Sur la peste pneumonique. A propôs de l’épidémie d’Alcochete”, Bulletin de l’OIHP, 15 (1923): 1431-1439.

Jorge, Ricardo. Rongeurs et puces dans la conservation et la transmission de la peste. Paris: OIHP, 1928

Jorge, Ricardo. Summa epidemiologica de la peste, épidémies anciennes et modernes. Paris: OIHP, 1933.

Jorge, Ricardo. Les Rodentia domestiques et sauvages dans l’évolution séculaire et mondiale de la peste. Lisboa: Casa Portuguesa, 1937.

Latour, Bruno. Pasteur: guerre et paix des microbes. Paris: La Découverte, 2001.

Lee, S.T. “Some of the different aspects between influenza, pneumonia and pneumonic plague,” International Record of Medicine and General Practice Clinics, 10, 9 (1919): 401-402.

Lousada, Manuel Pires. O Exército e a ruptura da ordem política em Portugal, 1820-1974. Lisboa: Prefácio, 2007.

Lynteris, Christos. Ethnographic plague. Configuring disease on the Chinese-Russian frontier. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59685-7

Lynteris, Christos. “Pestis minor: the history of a contested plague pathology,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 93 (2019): 55-81. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2019.0002

Lynteris, Christos (ed.) Plague image and imagination from medieval to modern times. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72304-0

Lynteris, Christos. Visual plague. The emergence of epidemic photography. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14413.001.0001

Lynteris, Christos; Evans, Nicholas H. Histories of post-mortem contagion: infectious corpses and contested burials. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62929-2

Marques, Alexandra. O tratamento anti-rábico e a criaçao do Instituto Bacteriológico em Lisboa. MA thesis, Universidade de Lisboa, 2010

Marques, Ricardo. 1914. Portugal no ano da Grande Guerra. Alfragide: Oficina do Livro, 2014.

Martínez, Francisco Javier, “Al servicio de las colonias (de otros): la peste y el viaje del doctor Ricardo Jorge al Marruecos francés en 1932”, in Youssef Akmir, ed. Marrocos-Portugal. História, memória, patrimonio. Agadir: Université d’Agadir, in press.

Ministère des Affaires Étrangers. Conférence sanitaire internationale de Paris: 7 novembre 1911-17 janvier 1912. Procès-verbaux. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1912.

Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros, Portugal na Primeira Guerra Mundial (1914-1918), 3 vols. Lisboa: Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros, 1995.

Montaldo, Federico. La peste bubónica en Oporto, 1899-1900. Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Fortanet, 1900.

Nunes, Maria de Fátima. “Ricardo Jorge and the construction of a medico-sanitary public discourse. Portugal and international sanitary networks”, in María Isabel Porras Gallo, Ryan A. Davis, eds., The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. Perspectives from the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas. Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2014, 56-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781580468640-004

Paillette, Céline, “Épidémies, santé et ordre mondial. Le rôle des organisations sanitaires internationales, 1903-1923”, Monde(s), 2, n.º 2 (2012): 235-256. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/mond.122.0235

Palanca, José Alberto “Prólogo”, in Eduardo Delgado. El peligro de la peste en España. Madrid: Imprenta del Asilo de Huérfanos del S.C. de Jesús, 1924: 5-10.

Peckham, Robert. Epidemics in modern Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316026939

Pereira, Rui Mateus, “Ricardo Jorge, o mal-amado. Os serviços de saúde militar no quadro da Grande Guerra e da Gripe Pneumónica”, in Helena da Silva, Rui Mateus Pereia, Francisco Bandeira, eds., Centenário da Gripe Pneumónica.: A Pandemia em Retrospetiva, Portugal 1918-1919. Lisboa: Inspecção Geral das Actividades em Saúde, 2019: 55-84.

Pontes, David Manuel Guedes, “O cerco da peste no Porto - Cidade, imprensa e saúde pública na crise sanitária de 1899”. PhD diss., Universidade do Porto, 2020.

Raj, Kapil “Beyond Postcolonialism . . . and Postpositivism: Circulation and the Global History of Science,” Isis, 104 (2013): 337-347. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/670951

Rasmussen, Anne. “Documenter la santé en guerre: l’internationale sanitaire interalliée, 1915-1919”. Bulletin de l’Institut Pierre Renovin, 44, 2 (2016), 103-118. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/bipr1.044.0103

Ribeiro, Henrique, “Pulgas e peste na Ilha Terceira. Um pequeno contributo para o seu melhor conhecimento”. Master diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1996.

Rubin, Martin David. “The League of Nations Health Organisation”, in Paul Weindling, ed., International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 56-80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511599606.006

Silva, Matheus Duarte da. “Competition, controversies and microbial cultures: The development of the antiplague serum between Paris and India (1894-1899)”. Revue d’histoire des sciences, 71 (2018), 49-77. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/rhs.711.0049

Silva, Matheus Duarte da. “Between deserts and jungles: the emergence and circulation of sylvatic plague, 1920-1950”. Medical Anthropology, 42, 4 (2023), 325-339 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2023.2189110

Silva, Matheus Duarte da; Nosaka, Shiori. Plague and the global emergence of microbiology, 1894-1920. In: Matheus Alves Duarte Da Silva, Thomás A. S. Haddad & Kapil Raj (eds.) Beyond science and empire: circulation of knowledge in an age of global empires, 1750-1945. New York, Routledge, 2023: 205-225. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367814540

Simon, Zoltán Boldizsár, “Historicism and Constructionism: Rival Ideas of Historical Change,” History of European Ideas, 45, n.º 8 (2019): 1171-1190. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2019.1653351

Slack, Paul. “Introduction”. In Terence Ranger, Paul Slack (eds.) Epidemics and ideas. Essays on the historical perception of pestilence. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511563645.002

Sobral, José Manuel Sobral; and Lima, Maria Luísa, “A epidemia da pneumónica em Portugal no seu tempo histórico”, Ler História, 73 (2018): 45-66 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/lerhistoria.4036

Vagneron, Frederick, “La grippe espagnole: une historiographie centenaire revisitée”, Ler História, 73 (2018): 21-43 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/lerhistoria.4004