ABSTRACT

In the first writings about the tropics, there are no register of such morbid manifestation. The absence of descriptions of lepers in the main documents produced by the colonists is, certainly, the pattern among the authors, expressly in the letters of the Jesuits and on general chronic. In the writings from André Thevet (1502-1590) and Jean de Lery (1536-1613) this subject simply does not appear; Gabriel Soares de Souza (1540-1591) spoke of boubas, wounds and fevers, but not leprosy; William

Both extracts belong to texts and authors from distinct periods: the first one is part of the Holy Bible’s Old Testament, specifically from the Book of Leviticus-part of a whole chapter devoted to leprosy, indeed-and the second, a letter sent in 1788 by the Câmara de Pernambuco officials (or Senate House), in Brazil, to the Queen Maria I. Although the chronological and geographical distance between those writings, it is possible to find some approaches on their perceptions about the lepers, now identified as those who have the Hansen’s disease1: horror, revulsion, aversion. The

Piso (1611-1678) scrutinized Brazil’s flora, fauna and diseases without even mentioning the morphea, just to name a few of the most important authors about colonial Brazil.