Probable first report of a motor deafferentation syndrome in the Paraguayan War

ABSTRACT The Paraguayan War ended 150 years ago. Back then, there were outbreaks of combatants’ limb weakness and tingling related to "palustrian cachexia", not clearly funded at the time on nutritional deficiency, the use of native flora to feed troops, and alcoholism. We report a case of a soldier with ascending paralysis, mental confusion and finally tetraplegia with preserved oculomotricity. This would probably be a case of locked-in syndrome (LIS) due to Gayet-Wernicke's encephalopathy consequent to thiamine deficiency. The role of thiamine in the peripheral or central nervous system expression was shown decades later to be related to poor diet, or use of foods containing thiaminase or thiamine antagonists, worsened by the fact that the bodily stores of thiamine are restricted, and deficits may grow fast.

The Revolta da Chibata: Conscription, Corporal Punishment, and State Control of Free Afro-Brazilians

On November 22, 1910, Rio de Janeiro was convulsed by the four-day Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash). Approximately half of the predominantly Afro-Brazilian sailors stationed in the nation’s capital—likely fifteen hundred to two thousand men—seized four modern battleships, removed their officers, and besieged the city. They complained of mistreatment, forced recruitment, low pay, and meager food, but their only demand in their first communication to the president was the cessation of corporal punishment in the Brazilian navy. Three of the four ships seized had been recently obtained by the Brazilian government from British shipyards; two were the first all-big-gun dreadnought-class battleships ever sold by the British to any foreign navy. Their 12-inch guns could near-simultaneously launch twelve 850-pound explosive shells at targets miles away, meaning that should they fire almost every part of the Brazilian capital city was under threat. Their second communique to the president demanded an end to the “slavery as practiced in the Brazilian navy.” The institution’s nearly century-long traditions of forced conscription, systematic and ritualized lashing, long-term forced labor, and the conspicuous malnourishment of Afro-Brazilian men tempts comparison to the exploitation of the enslaved in preabolition Brazil, but other than a brief policy of purchase and subsequent freeing of enslaved men to serve in the armed forces during the Paraguayan War (1864–1870), naval service did not draw on the exploitation of the enslaved. Instead, it conscripted Brazil’s free Afro-descendant population; citizens who represented a 47 percent plurality of Brazil’s population, larger than either the free white or enslaved Black populations at the time of Brazil’s first national census in 1872. The Brazilian navy was just one part in a series of institutions and legislative controls created and used to control Brazil’s free Afro-Brazilian population both before and after abolition in 1888. The freedom and citizenship of free Black men, women, and children was often ephemeral and regulated. Although Brazil lacked institutionalized racial segregation such as apartheid or Jim Crow, controls such as restriction on land ownership, police policies, military conscription, the manipulation of orphans, forced apprenticeship, and incarceration were implemented in such racialized ways that the overall outcome for Afro-Brazilians was similar. The navy’s acquisition of cutting-edge weapons of war created an opportunity for powerless Afro-descendant men to challenge the generally unacknowledged state systems of racial oppression and hierarchy.

Slavery and International Relations in 19th-Century Brazil

Since the beginning of the colonial period, slavery was an important factor in the constitution of international relations between the Portuguese Empire and the other empires and states in the Atlantic world. In the 15th century, Portuguese merchants sold enslaved Africans from West Africa, initially to Europe and afterwards to the Americas, opening commercial and diplomatic relations that lasted for centuries and would be responsible for the establishment of the largest commercial venture in the Atlantic world in the early modern period. With the independence of Brazil, slavery—and the debate about the prohibition of the Atlantic trade of enslaved Africans—came to be the central element in negotiations of diplomatic relations between the country and other nations, notably Great Britain and the republics of the La Plata River region. Indeed, slavery remained a core issue at least until the end of the Paraguayan War in 1870, when growing international isolation, resulting from the ongoing presence of slavery in Brazil, opened the final crisis of the empire.

Agrarian Nationalism or “Imperial” Science? “El Sabio” Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Science

As a contribution to recent discourse over the practice of natural science in Latin America’s liberal years, this paper examines Swiss-born botanist Moisés S. Bertoni’s place in Paraguay’s agricultural development following the Paraguayan War (1864-70). The war forced leaders in a devastated Paraguay to promote the immigration of European scientific experts and farmers, with the expectation that their knowledge of modern agricultural science and practice would revitalize the nation’s agriculture and lift Paraguay out of its poverty. From the late nineteenth century Bertoni’s work and knowledge of Paraguay’s tropical and semi-tropical climate and botany shaped much of Paraguayan agricultural policy and practice. And while his contributions were influential in understanding the nation’s environment and agriculture, what is unclear is how much his approach was the product of deliberate introduction of European agricultural science or the result of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error. Keywords: agricultural science; natural science; Paraguay; tropical climate

Agrarian Nationalism or “Imperial” Science? “El Sabio” Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Science

As a contribution to recent discourse over the practice of natural science in Latin America’s liberal years, this paper examines Swiss-born botanist Moisés S. Bertoni’s place in Paraguay’s agricultural development following the Paraguayan War (1864-70). The war forced leaders in a devastated Paraguay to promote the immigration of European scientific experts and farmers, with the expectation that their knowledge of modern agricultural science and practice would revitalize the nation’s agriculture and lift Paraguay out of its poverty. From the late nineteenth century Bertoni’s work and knowledge of Paraguay’s tropical and semi-tropical climate and botany shaped much of Paraguayan agricultural policy and practice. And while his contributions were influential in understanding the nation’s environment and agriculture, what is unclear is how much his approach was the product of deliberate introduction of European agricultural science or the result of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error.

Digital Resources: The Digital Library of Ibero-American Heritage

The Digital Library of Ibero-American Heritage: Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano (BDPI) is a metasearch engine that provides access to the digital resources of fifteen countries in Iberian-America. This tool is provided with a simple search, an advanced search, and an Application Programming Interface (API), all of which provide different points of entry into the digital objects’ metadata as well as direct links to these sources in their original repositories. These objects can be queried through multiple fields such as resource type, author, edition, date, full text search, and providing institution, among others. The BDPI’s collections contain a selection of documents curated by specific word searches on the digital objects’ metadata. These collections range from botany and fauna to gastronomy, folk tales, the Paraguayan War, and sound records, just to name a few examples. The BDPI is part of a new stage in the long-term efforts of national libraries across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, with the purpose of enabling public access to historical materials via the Internet. Thus, the analysis of this initiative implies also a reflection about the overall public importance of libraries and the open access to their collections. Due to technological and institutional difficulties, the BDPI still has a lot of room for improvement, especially in terms of mapping variants into more standardized metadata. Nonetheless, this digitization and web outreach initiative has great potential for scholars around the globe interested in the study of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula.

ESTRATÉGIAS SENHORIAIS, ARTIMANHAS CATIVAS: RELAÇÕES ESCRAVISTAS NA FRONTEIRA ENTRE O BRASIL E O URUGUAI (SÉCULO XIX)

A fronteira sul do Império brasileiro foi palco de constantes conflitos. Seja entre os luso-brasileiros e o Império espanhol, entre os brasileiros e orientais ou argentinos, seja a Guerra do Paraguai, a região teve poucos momentos de paz ao longo do século XIX. Do mesmo modo, durante o Oitocentos, o regramento sobre o sistema escravista brasileiro sofreu importantes percalços, como o fim do tráfico em 1850 e a Lei do Ventre Livre em 1871. No Brasil meridional, a abolição da escravidão no Uruguai foi outro fator de desestabilização da instituição escravista. Mesmo em meio a estas contendas e mesmo com as mudanças pelas quais passavam as relações escravistas (no Brasil e fora dele), ali se estabeleceu a mais expressiva criação de gado de todo o país. E, mais importante, produção pecuária que tinha na mão de obra escrava algo estruturante de sua organização. É neste contexto que estudamos a relação entre fronteira e escravidão no presente artigo. Nele, buscamos entender como senhores e escravos lidavam com o espaço fronteiriço, utilizando tal aspecto em seu benefício. Foi possível identificar que a fronteira ora servia para que cada um dos polos buscasse seus objetivos, ora para forjar acordos entre eles, sendo sempre um fator fundante das relações ali produzidas.Palavras-chave: Escravidão. Brasil meridional. Fronteira.ABSTRACTThe southern border of the Brazilian Empire was the scene of constant conflicts. Between the Luso-Brazilians and the Spanish Empire, between the Brazilians and the Orientals or the Argentines, or the Paraguayan War, the region had few moments of peace during the nineteenth century. Likewise, during the nineteenth century, the rule on the Brazilian slave system suffered major setbacks, such as the end of trafficking in 1850 and the Free Womb Law in 1871. In southern Brazil, the abolition of slavery in Uruguay was another destabilizing factor of the slave institution. Even in the midst of these struggles, and even with the changes through which slave relations passed (in Brazil and elsewhere), there was established the most expressive cattle breeding in the whole country. And, more important, livestock production that had on the labor slave something structuring of its organization. It is in this context that we study the relationship between frontier and slavery in this article. In it, we sought to understand masters and slaves dealing with the frontier space, using such aspect to their advantage. It was possible to identify that the frontier now served for each of the poles to pursue their objectives, sometimes served to forge agreements between them, always being a founding factor of the relations produced there.Keywords: Slavery. Southern Brazil. Border.