From the “dirty port” to the Disinfection Service of the Port of Rio de Janeiro (1893-1911)

This article demonstrates how sanitation was one of the many issues that led to the heavy opposition to the operation of the Port of Rio de Janeiro, at the end of the nineteenth century. Aside from the historiographical framework that centers on the movement of people and objects through ports as a threat to public health at that time, the aim was to clarify how the port itself and its infrastructures were considered hazardous and unsanitary and how the sanitation defense procedures were found to be inadequate and ineffective. The evidence presented here points to the destruction-construction of the Port of Rio de Janeiro, in the early twentieth century, as a solution to radically transform its infrastructure. The port under construction was consonant with the full technical-technological implementation of the “disinfection” service, which both supported its new operation and helped solve the public health issues afflicting the city.