The 1899 Porto plague outbreak was an epidemic of bubonic plague centered in the city of

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

, in the north of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. The arrival of plague in the Portuguese city of Porto signalled the first outbreak of the

third plague pandemic The third plague pandemic was a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in Yunnan, China, in 1855. This episode of bubonic plague spread to all inhabited continents, and ultimately led to more than 12 million deaths in India and China (and perha ...

in Europe, attracting international attention, due to fears of a return of the Black Death in the continent. It also pitched local and national authorities as well as medical experts in heated arguments about the nature of the disease and the way to contain it, namely, the controversial decision to surround the city by a military-enforced ''

cordon sanitaire ''Cordon sanitaire'' () is French for "sanitary cordon". It may refer to: *Cordon sanitaire (medicine), a cordon that quarantines an area during an infectious disease outbreak *Cordon sanitaire (politics), refusal to cooperate with certain politic ...

'' for four months, imposed by the government of Prime Minister

José Luciano de Castro José Luciano de Castro Pereira Corte-Real (14 December 1834 – 9 March 1914) was a Portuguese politician, statesman, and journalist who served three times as Prime Minister of Portugal. He was one of the founders of the Progressist Party ...

. The city's Medical Health Officer, Ricardo Jorge, head of the city's Municipal Services of Health and Hygiene and of the Municipal Bacteriological Laboratory, led the efforts to contain the disease and personally gathered laboratory proof to correctly identify the responsible

infectious agent In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...

: this earned him a great reputation as a modern

sanitarian Environmental Health Officers (also known as Public Health Inspectors or Environmental Health Practitioners) are responsible for carrying out measures for protecting public health, including administering and enforcing legislation related to enviro ...

and

bacteriologist A bacteriologist is a microbiologist, or similarly trained professional, in bacteriology -- a subdivision of microbiology that studies bacteria, typically pathogenic ones. Bacteriologists are interested in studying and learning about bacteria, ...

and launched his highly successful national and international career. There were 132 deaths attributed to the plague outbreak, out of 320 total cases. Eminent bacteriologist Luís da Câmara Pestana contracted the disease after receiving a small scratch while examining a plague corpse during the outbreak, and died shortly afterwards. The plague outbreak had considerable political, social, and economic repercussions: it exacerbated class divisions and tensions between republicans in Porto and the royalist government in Lisbon (the centuries-old Portuguese Monarchy and would be replaced by the

Portuguese First Republic The First Portuguese Republic ( pt, Primeira República Portuguesa; officially: ''República Portuguesa'', Portuguese Republic) spans a complex 16-year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy ...

in a revolution just 10 years later). Portugal's

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

legislation was modernised in the years following the crisis; the

Directorate-General of Health The Directorate-General of Health ( pt, Direção-Geral da Saúde; DGS) is a division of the Government of Portugal, Portuguese public administration concerned with public health. Even though it is statutorily a service of the Ministry of Health ( ...

was established in response to the outbreak; it remains the country's leading agency for public health and disease prevention.

References

{{Reflist 1899 disease outbreaks 1899 in Portugal 19th-century epidemics Health disasters in Portugal History of Porto Disease outbreaks in Portugal Third plague pandemic 19th-century disasters in Portugal

See also

References