GEOGRAFIA DA SAÚDE E O ESPAÇO URBANO DE SÃO LUÍS-MA: interfaces da relação saúde e ambiente no período de 1854 1954

Abstract

A geographical and historical analysis of helth-environment relation applied to the urban space of São Luis between 1854 and 1954, the main purpose is to discuss the binomial health-environment since the origin of Health Geography, showing how its presuppositions had been linked to the images of the maranhense environment and to the urban growth of São Luís, attending the economical priority of the social actors who investigated the urban diseases, The dialectic method of abordage and the historical procedure method were used, justapoing the qualitative aborgade through data interpretation, in the analysis of the contents of the researched texts, The origin and the development of the urban space as source of epidemic and endemic diseases are discussed, observing that the historical records indicate that this space was considered unhealthy, mainly, because of the populational concentration and because of the lack of basic infra-structure. As corollary of the insalubrity of the urban environment, the first sanitary rules were applied and regulated the use of it. The urban space is taken as an object to be medicated. As a scientific landmark to Health Geography of Maranhão it is considered the doctorate thesis Climate and most frequent diseases of the province of Maranhão , by César Augusto Marques, a doctor from Maranhão, presented in 1854. The historical aspects of the miasmatic and microbian theories are rescued, contextualizing in what way both of them gave priority or not to the relation health and envrironment, and their applicability to the movement of hygienist intervention of the urban space. From that dicussion it is done an analysis in which periods the miasmatic and microbian theories served as theorethical support to treat and attend the disorderly growth of the urban space of São Luís, and yet to discuss how the relation health-environment was priviledged and/or excluded in the actions of sanitary care which regulated the us and occupation of the same space. In spite of its theorethical and scientific restrictions, it is confirmed that the miasmatic theory was observed in the relation health and urban environment; as basic presupposition in the mitigating measures in promoting health, giving priority to the multicausality of factors vision which interfere in the population s health. The microbian theory, despite of contextualizing at first the relation health and urban environment of São Luís, gave more priority to the unicausality vision between the pathogenic agents and man.