A monument to Lazarus: the leprosy hospital of Rio de Janeiro.

Soon after the Portuguese made landfall in 1500, Europeans and, later, African slaves introduced leprosy, and Saint Lazarus, the patron saint of its victims, into Brazil. Social and political pressure mounted by the middle of the eighteenth century in the city of Rio de Janeiro to remove those unfortunates from the city's streets even before the move of Brazil's capital in 1763. Frei Antôniom the bishop of Rio, founded the venerable hospital that year in the neighborhood of São Cristóvão, He requested that the Irmandade do Santissimo Sacramento da Candelária provide oversight and administration. The brotherhood continues to honor its covenant of 239 years ago. The history of this hospital provides insight into the complex relationships that existed between the citizenry and church and state. Rio's leprosy hospital, now the Hospital Frei Antônio, had an important role in the evolution of the health care professions, progress in medical science, and the genesis of the hygienic movement in Brazil. This study also contributes to the history of a disease that persists in 2002 Brazil as a public health issue.

[Revealing a history of exclusion: the experience at Hospital-Colônia Itapuã Data and Research center]. / Desvendando uma história de exclusão: a experiência do Centro de Documentação e Pesquisa do Hospital-Colônia Itapuã.

Inaugurated in May 1940, in Viamão Municipality in Rio Grande do Sul, Hospital Colônia Itapuã was meant to shelter Hansen's disease patients. Built in order to work as a small town, the hospital was the stage of several life and work histories. The fragments of these collective and individual experiences have been recovered since 1999, when Centro de Documentação e Pesquisa (Cedope/HCI) was first implemented. It is through the center activities that we propose a comparative study of the history of the hospital and the history of those who lived and those who still live in it.

[Hospitals in Prague from the high Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (1135-1800)]. / Hospitäler in Prag vom Hochmittelalter bis zur Aufklärung (1135-1800).

Based on hitherto unknown layouts and documents from the Prague archives, this paper reviews the evolution of the health care system in the capital of Bohemia. From the high Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, the town's history as well as changing political and religious tendencies provide a unique background for the development of different types of institutions for the care of the poor and sick. The first charitable foundations of the sovereigns and the archbishops were soon followed by the semi-monasterial infirmaries of the Hospitallers. Leprosoria and other shelters for the contagious deserve special attention. After the counter-reformation, the newly built hospitals of orders like the Brothers of Saint John of God and the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth played an important role. From the architectural point of view, the baroque hospitals built by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer belong to the most impressive examples of hospital architecture in Europe. Finally, the medical reforms of Emperor Joseph II. led to a series of completely new institutions, which can be regarded as the beginning of modern medicine im Bohemia. It was especially intended to describe exactly the site and the architectonic appearance of the preserved buildings. Thus, the medical historian can contribute to the care and preservation of these medical monuments.