Fear of the sertão: malaria and the Rondon Commission (1907-1915).

The article analyzes the relationships between disease, knowledge, and settlement of the Brazilian territory within the context of the Strategic Telegraph Commission from Mato Grosso to Amazonas, more famously known as the Rondon Commission. From 1907 to 1915, the commission traversed broad regions of what are now the states of Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Amazonas as part of its endeavor to set up telegraph lines that would link these regions to the country's main cities. Over time, the malaria, endemic to the places visited by the commission, forced it to abandon some of its goals and delay achievement of others.

[Interpreting Brazil as afflicted by disease and by the spirit of routine: the repercussion of Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna's medical report (1917-1935)].

The release of a report on the Oswaldo Cruz Institute's 1912 scientific voyage to North and Northeast Brazil, led by physicians Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna, debate that found its way to the pages of magazines of the letters and sciences. The report used the images of disease, geographic and cultural isolation, illiteracy, poverty, and a vocation for backwardness to portray the people living in interior Brazil. These images of the sertão were extensively criticized in the periodical A Informação Goiana, published by local doctors who refused to see the interior defined as 'sickly' and 'backwards'.