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ABSTRACT
This article explores the consequences of the phylloxera crisis on Rio de Janeiro’s wine market, the resulting public health debate, and the administrative problem of quality regulation and consumer protection. As a peripheral market with relatively low purchasing power, the Brazilian capital became a destination for many cheap imitation wines from Europe and also developed its own artificial wine industry. By the mid-1880s this led to a fierce competition on Rio’s wine market, which in turn provoked an unprecedented public debate about wine qualities and public health. Thus, the article shows that the problem of food safety, brought to public attention by the wine question, occupied a central place on the health agenda of the medical profession as well as the government and health authorities in late Imperial Brazil, triggering regulatory interventions that followed European models.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. During the period of the Brazilian Empire, the Minister of the Empire was synonymous with the Minister of the Interior.
2. Scholliers, “Food Fraud,” 77–90; Oddy, “Food Quality,” 91–103; Dessaux, “Chemical Expertise,” 351–368; Atkins and Stanziani, “From Laboratory,” 317–339.
3. Martins, Memória do Vinho, 219–222.
4. Simpson, Creating Wine, 58–65; Silva Lopes, Lluch and Pereira, “The Changing,” 349.
5. Barbosa and Rezende, Os Serviços, 80–96; Benchimol, Dos micróbios, 41; Fonseca, “A saúde pública,” 43–45; Delamarque, Junta Central, 139–143; Alves, “A reorganização.”
6. Costa, Qual a alimentação, 34.
7. Jornal do Commercio, August 14, 1877.
8. Almanak, 1885, 907–908; Lobo, História do Rio, 204. Until 1885, the Fritz, Mack & C. company had existed under the name C. Schumann & C.
9. Jornal do Commercio, July 24, 1884; Jornal do Commercio, November 27, 1884; Associação Commercial do Porto, Vinhos e vinagres, 3.
10. Associação Industrial, Archivos da Exposição, 469.
11. Almanak, 1882, 697. It is important to note that the term vinho de cana or vinho de garapa is also used in Brazilian Portuguese today to refer to an alcoholic beverage based on the fermentation of sugar cane juice. However, in the historical sources on the “wine question” in late Imperial Brazil that are used here, vinho de cana refers exclusively to counterfeit grape wines produced on the basis of sugar cane spirit.
12. Pimentel, Subsidios para o estudo, 315–316.
13. Official census data show a doubling of the capital city population from 266,831 to 518,290 for the period between 1872 and 1890. Meade, “Civilizing” Rio, 48.
14. Boletim da Alfandega, March 24, 1886. The import figures do not necessarily reflect consumption in the capital, as some of the imported wines were presumably also sold on to the neighboring provinces. More precise information on this is not available.
15. Jornal do Commercio, April 29, 1884.
16. Import and export duties were a key source of revenue for the Brazilian state at the time. Abreu and Lago, A economia brasileira, 22.
17. Jornal do Commercio, July 24, 1884; Jornal do Commercio, November 7, 1884.
18. The founder of the daily newspaper O Paiz, João José dos Reis Júnior (1846–1922), son of Portuguese immigrants and later 2nd Count of São Salvador de Matosinhos, also served as president of the Centro Commercial de Molhados.
19. O Paiz, October 16, 1884; Jornal do Commercio, October 23, 24, 25, 1884.
20. Simpson, Creating Wine, 69; Silva Lopes, Lluch and Pereira, “The Changing,” 349.
21. Almeida, Analyse médico-pratica, X.
22. Jornal do Commercio, November 27, 1884.
23. Jornal do Commercio, August 2, 1884; Jornal do Commercio, November 2, 1884.
24. Jornal do Commercio, October 14, 1884; Almanak, 1881, 823–833.
25. Jornal do Commercio, July 23, 1884.
26. Alves and Alves, A. J. Ferreira da Silva.
27. Associação Commercial do Porto, Vinhos e vinagres, 3.
28. Jornal do Commercio, February 17, 1885.
29. Proposta e Relatorio, 1884, 41; Proposta e Relatorio, 1885, 16; Gazeta da Tarde, July 29, 1885.
30. Benchimol, Dos micróbios, 75–83.
31. Jornal do Commercio, November 10, 1878.
32. Paul, Bacchic Medicine, 165–220; Norrie, The history of wine, 41–50.
33. Paz, A questão dos vinhos, 54.
34. Paz, A questão dos vinhos, 56–59.
35. Art. 1, Decree nr. 9,093, December 22, 1883.
36. “Relatorio apresentado ao governo,” 1884, 30.
37. “Relatorio do Presidente,” 1885, 17.
38. Paz, A questão dos vinhos, 4.
39. Boletim da Alfandega 3, no. 21, November 10, 1885.
40. Gazeta da Tarde, November 5, 1885.
41. O Paiz, November 1, 1885.
42. Gros, Carl Remigius Fresenius.
43. Jornal do Commercio, November 27, 1885.
44. Associação Commercial do Porto, Vinhos e vinagres, 18.
45. Paz, A questão dos vinhos, 121–125.
46. Paz, A questão dos vinhos, 125–135; Academia Imperial de Medicina, Vinhos artificiaes, 1–11. The physician Agostinho José de Sousa Lima (1842–1921), at that time president of the Academy, took the view in the debate that even the alcohol of real grape wine was ultimately a poison, and doubted the conviction of many colleagues who recommended moderate wine consumption as a cure for alcohol addiction.
47. Academia Imperial de Medicina, Vinhos artificiaes, 1.
48. Paz, A questão dos vinhos, 135–139.
49. Ibid., 149–177.
50. Ibid., 187–189.
51. Ibid., 192–201; Barbosa and Rezende, Os Serviços, 88–89.
52. Barbosa and Rezende, Os Serviços, 85–91.
53. Art. 83, Decree nr. 9,554, February 3, 1886.
54. Relatorio dos trabalhos, 1887, 14–24; Stanziani, Histoire de la qualité, 118.
55. Relatorio dos trabalhos, 1887, 24; Appendice 1°; Annexo n. 6.
56. Relatorio apresentado á Assembléa, 1887, 114.
57. Jornal do Commercio, January 20, 1887; Jornal do Commercio, February 1, 1887.
58. Art. 9, Law n. 3,313 of October 16, 1886.
59. Relatorio do Ministro, 1891, 259–260.
60. Decree n. 9870, February 22, 1888.
61. Jornal do Commercio, August 15, 1888.
62. Annaes do Parlamento, 1888, 96–98; 268–269.
63. Jornal do Commercio, September 28, 1888, 3; Art. 15, Law n. 3,396 of November 24, 1888.
64. Relatorio apresentado á Assembléa, 1888, 102.
65. “Relatorio sobre os trabalhos,” 47–48.
66. Ibid., 1889, 48.
67. “Relatorio da Inspectoria,” 1891, 8.
68. Stanziani, Information, 274–277.
69. “Relatorio sobre os trabalhos,” 1889, 46.
70. Arts. 11, 184 and 185, Decree n. 9,554 of February 3, 1886.
71. Annaes da Camara, 1883, 222–223.
72. Annaes do Parlamento, 1887, 177–178; 218–220.
73. Freire, Sarmento and Paz, A Inspectoria Geral, 3–13.
74. Benchimol, Dos micróbios, 41.
75. Freire, Sarmento and Paz, A Inspectoria Geral, 15.
76. Decree n. 10230 and Decree n. 10231 of April 13, 1889.
77. Art. 4, Decree n. 10231 of April 13, 1889.
78. Almeida, Fabricas de Vinhos, 9.
79. To systematize import controls, the Minister of the Empire had already in August 1888 set up a provisional laboratory at the customs office, which, however, had proved to be inadequate for the task. “Relatorio sobre os trabalhos,” 1889, 49–51; Brazil-Medico 2, 1888, 358–359.
80. Jornal do Commercio, October 15, 1889.
81. Since the beginning of the 1880s, the French state repeatedly intervened in the wine market to ban certain practices or the use of certain substances. However, final regulation did not take place until the enactment of a comprehensive food law in 1905. Stanziani, Information, 280–284.
82. “Relatorio dos trabalhos,” 1891, 133.
83. “Relatorio da Inspectoria,” 1891, 9.
84. Barbosa and Rezende, Os Serviços, 97–99; Brinkmann, “Fight the poisoners,” passim.
85. “Relatorio dos trabalhos,” 1891, 133.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sören Brinkmann
Sören Brinkmann is Professor of History at the Willy Brandt Center of the University of Wrocław, where he researches and teaches on various topics of European and Brazilian history, such as memory politics, political regionalisms, and food and public health. He is the co-author of Memorias divididas. Guerra civil y franquismo en la sociedad y la política españolas (1936–2008) (Madrid, 2009) and the author of Leite para os Trópicos! Consumo, produção e políticas públicas no Brasil, 1889–1964 (Rio de Janeiro, 2023).