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son!... Oh I could never drink that. It was for fever;
but oh it was so, so bitter! But it had to be bitter things
to combat (sic.) the seizures. And lupine beans soaked;
and then we drank that water that was also very bitter.
You name it…
(Maria, 2006).
Here we made a tea of
marcela
and
erva-férrea
. Our moth-
ers made it and then they put it outside in a bowl on top
of a pot to catch the night dew.And then they would seep
it and in the morning we would drink it, that
marcela
wa-
ter, before eating. It was very, very bitter!
(Bárbara, 2006).
Other mixtures that stimulated perspiration were
also prepared using garlic, spirit, sugar, vinegar and
even gunpowder. But, according to some interview-
ees’ childhood and youth memories, definite cures of
malaria sometimes followed the simple satisfaction of
unusual appetites. Many of them reported such uncom-
mon cravings for food as a malaria effect.They did not
crave for “exotic” foods but for those that they could
not have as often as they would like or that they would
only have in very small portions.Thus, appetites meant
feeling like eating a whole box of sardines; grilled or
fried cod instead of bread soup; oranges; bread with
sausage; or drinking wine directly from the cask. As if
these longings were a pretext to dodge food scarcity
and monotonous diets perceived as markers of their
destitute condition; the only transgression that would
not incur in violent repression.
Hence curing malaria meant resorting to a variety of
therapeutic means deeply embedded in local social
structures and habits.This pluralism matched immedi-
ate practical needs and did not stem from rejection of
or suspicion towards medical therapeutics, which were
rather one among the many choices presented to the
rural workers.
Final remarks
Looking at malaria history in Portugal from the stand-
point of former rural workers’ memories evinces how
local ecological, political and social factors influence
the disease’s epidemiological trajectory and dictate gra-
dients of its social relevance, as well as the range of re-
sponses that it triggers.
Malaria’s medical recognition as a health issue need-
ing attention changed over time and was not the same
for every doctor. All in all, and despite not very trust-
worthy statistics, malaria was not a life threatening
disease though it did cause some deaths. Although ma-
laria could reach significant numbers in its worst years
(as was the case during the Second World War due to
shortages of medication, of labour and food) it did not
weigh on national morbidity numbers as much as other
diseases, especially children’s diseases; moreover ma-
laria was confined to well defined regions of the coun-
try. It could result in loss of hours of work, but so could
other diseases prevalent all year round, while malaria
was seasonal. So was it really a national issue, a public
health problem?
At least for some Portuguese doctors it was; maybe due
to its cyclical upsurges that brought it to their atten-
tion, maybe due to these doctors humanistic principles
and everyday experience on the ground in particularly
afflicted regions. For others, malaria was a means of
stimulating governmental investment in health, follow-
ing the social medicine model that had been adopted
for sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis. It
was also a means of attaining international support for
their attempt at enhancing and reframing state health
services especially in rural areas.Yet for other doctors,
like the Portuguese malariologist Francisco Cambour-
nac, it was also a means of developing skills, building
professional networks and promoting their careers –
Cambournac became the director of theWorld Health
Organisation Regional Office for Africa in 1954.
But, for Portuguese rural workers malaria was one
among a collection of predicaments, losing impact due
to its transitory passage in their lives and the persis-
tence of other daily troubles.Thus, malaria came up in
their recollections of the past as part of personal and
communitarian histories – tinted by the present – of
hard working conditions and unequal relations, poor
housing, exploitation and hunger. Doctors wrote about
the need to install windows and doors screens and to
use bed nets to prevent malaria; former rural workers
described their shacks and how they slept in the fields,
disturbed by mosquitoes and scorpions, as symbols of
their deprivation. Doctors counted mosquitoes larvae
at rice fields, destroyed them with chemicals and ex-
perimented with irrigation techniques to reduce mos-
quitoes breeding. Rural workers described rice fields as
sites of hard work under extreme climatic conditions,
tormented by many sorts of aquatic creatures; but also
as a fundamental means of making a living and of joyful
comradeship.
Such different perspectives and various ways of deal-
ing with malaria never clashed, unlike in Mexico, dur-
ing the last years of the malaria eradication programme
(Cueto 2007); in Portugal they coexisted peacefully,
overlapping, ignoring one another or creatively com-
bining. In the end all went well and malaria was con-
quered (around 1960) just like in Italy, Greece or Spain,
although quietly, with much less national or interna-
tional stir. It would take over 10 years before theWHO