This is a novel about Oswaldo Cruz, the man responsible for introducing epidemiological control in Brazil and the protagonist of the 1904 Vaccine Revolt. It is a precise diagnosis of a society that, weighed down by misery and backwardness, reluctantly opens itself up to modernity.
While awaiting the arrival in Rio de Janeiro of an American researcher interested in the life of the public health expert Oswaldo Cruz, an unemployed doctor retraces and re-examines the life and struggles of this pioneer of experimental medicine in Brazil. It was Cruz who, at the start of the century, against all odds, fought epidemics of bubonic plague, yellow fever and smallpox that raged not only in the countryside but also in the federal capital itself, and completely overhauled Brazil’s basic public health policies.
Tropical dreams is a novel that not only follows the controversial path of a man whose innovative methods led to the outbreak of the famous Vaccine Revolt, but also outlines the panorama of an entire crucial era, providing a precise diagnosis of a society that, held back by misery and backwardness, reluctantly opened up to modernity.
