THE 1895 EPIDEMIC OUTBREAK OF BUBONIC PLAGUE IN MACAO. A PORTUGUESE VIEW ON THE TRANSMISSION AND SPREAD OF PLAGUE一八九五年澳門爆發黑死病：葡萄牙對瘟疫傳播的看法
This article analyses the outbreak of bubonic plague in Macau in 1895 from a historiographical perspective centred on the report of the physician Gomes da Silva, then head of the colony's health services. Against the backdrop of a period in which the aetiological agent (Yersinia pestis) was already...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2010
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40034/3543 |
| Summary: | This article analyses the outbreak of bubonic plague in Macau in 1895 from a historiographical perspective centred on the report of the physician Gomes da Silva, then head of the colony's health services. Against the backdrop of a period in which the aetiological agent (Yersinia pestis) was already known, but the mechanisms of transmission—especially the role of fleas—were not yet fully understood, the author investigates how the Portuguese report integrated emerging bacteriological knowledge into the prevailing theories on the transmission and diffusion of the disease.
Methodologically, the study reconstructs the epidemiology described for Macau, relates local data to the broader framework of the third pandemic in Chinese territory, and undertakes a critical reading of Gomes da Silva's text, highlighting his argumentation on "infectiousness" versus "contagiousness" and the causal dynamics linking animal foci, urban conditions, and circulation between spaces.
It concludes that the report constitutes a relevant testimony of how Portuguese colonial authorities articulated natural and social variables to interpret the spread of the outbreak, offering a coherent reading—albeit situated within the scientific knowledge of the time—to explain the patterns of dissemination in Macau and its regional framing. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |