A global desert: plague, rural knowledge, and epidemiological reasoning in the Brazilian backlands (1939–1965)

The backlands are a semi-arid region of Brazil, where plague became endemic from the 1930s. The chapter follows the construction of opposing explanations for plague endemicity in this region by the Chilean doctor Atilio Macchiavello in 1939–1940 and the Argentinian doctor José Maria de la Barrera in 1957–1958. To Macchiavello, the endemicity was tied to the rat–flea complex, whereas to de la Barrera, wild rodents were the real reservoir of plague from which rats became infected. The chapter argues that both experts considered that the backlands’ semi-arid characteristics explained plague endemicity, as the recurrent droughts forced contact between humans, rats, and wild rodents. Moreover, it argues that these epidemiological explanations were constructed only thanks to interactions between the foreign experts with Brazilian doctors and with backlands rural communities. By showing the backlands and their rural communities as central to produce rural disease knowledge, the chapter defuses a pervasive perception seeing this region as backward and isolated from Brazil and the rest of the world, a position that gained force after the publication of Euclides da Cunha’s 1902 book Rebellion in the Backlands.