When I was 13, sometime in the last century, for a while, and for nothing, I was sure there were snakes under my bed, in my closets, and in every dark corner of the house. Detail: my family lived in downtown São Paulo, and I had never seen even a worm nearby. I read, then, somewhere, that the best way to eliminate an irrational fear was to face it up close and decided that, on vacation, without telling anyone, I would put the theory to the test by going to the Butantan Institute, in the west side. from the capital.
Long story short, it took three long bus rides (which I never told my parents about, of course) before I mustered up the courage to step inside to finally look my nightmares in the eye. At the end of those vacations, I was even invited by one of the researchers who saw me there almost daily to get to know those animals more closely, with the right to (unthinkable days before) direct contact with one of them, in the laboratory. When I felt the snake’s body curl up on my arm, the fear disappeared for good and Butantan, I assure you, was the best therapy I’ve had in my life.
Later, over the years working as a tour guide, I took several groups of foreigners who came to Brazil with the fixed idea that we had snakes roaming the streets here. As, of course, we didn’t have it, it showed where they could be seen safely. Butantan was always successful.
The fire that burned almost two-thirds of the collections of animals kept for studies at the institution, on May 15, 2010, and which experts pointed out to have been caused by the absurd proximity of thousands of liters of alcohol and formaldehyde and heat sources to the terrariums they housed. the different species, was, for the author of this blog, a personal affront.
Twelve years and many renovations later, and with two years of visitation prevented by the Covid-19 pandemic, Parque Butantan reopened its doors on July 26th. In just one month, it received 100,000 visitors, an expressive number considering that the annual average until 2019 was 300,000. Most went directly to the Biological Museum, where the main stars of the house can be seen up close, in their climate-controlled environments – the big and small snakes, some spiders, scorpions, frogs, lizards and turtles.
Until recently, the main attraction of the space was the cobra smuggled by a student from Brasília who ended up bitten by the animal, mobilizing Ibama, the Federal Police and, of course, Butantan. “His luck was that we had the specific serum to give him because we have another specimen of cobra captured in Santa Catarina previously, and for its handling we need to have the serum on hand, as accidents are not rare”, says Giuseppe Puorto, director of the Institute in which he has worked since he was 17 – he is now 68 and shows every detail with the enthusiasm of a newcomer. More recently, the snake that attracts the most clicks to social networks is the great anaconda, which appears in all selfies as “the old man from the river”, in allusion to the enchanted character of the soap opera Pantanal.
Another point of attraction, especially for children, is the Macacário, which brings together 60 animals of the rhesus species, widely used for research, but which in Butantan only play and socialize in the environment specially created for them. “Because they are exotic animals, even though they are no longer used for research by the institute, they cannot be released into the wild, nor returned to the country of origin of their ancestors, China”, explains Puorto.
educational trails
But the Butantan also deserves a special visit from those who like to walk in the middle of nature without leaving São Paulo. The great highlight there are the beautiful trails of Horto Oswaldo Cruz, two stretches of green with less than 1 kilometer each, which attract not only hikers but also families who go there for picnics and people who only look for their benches to read a book. A third trail, in another part of the park, is longer, but is closed for works in its surroundings that could jeopardize the safety of hikers. There, all the trees are numbered, cataloged and identified to the visitor and everything reminds us that it was there that the now sophisticated research complex began to be born in 1917, with an emphasis at the time on the study of medicinal plants.
In addition to being an oasis of vegetation, a huge rose garden planted after the last renovation, and a beautiful monument to Brazilian science, with its 12 historic buildings, Butantan is a large construction site spread over 750,000 square meters. Founded in 1898 to fight an outbreak of bubonic plague that had been identified in the port of Santos (SP), what emerged as an arm of the Bacteriological Institute was installed far away from the area that the city occupied at the time, on the Butantan farm, expropriated by the then president. from the state of São Paulo, Fernando de Albuquerque.
In the stables of the expropriated farm, the sanitary doctor Vital Brazil began to produce the antiplague serum, which had been developed in Europe after centuries of violent scourges. The site would only become an independent research institution in 1901, under the name of Instituto Serumteráphico, already under the direction of Vital Brazil himself.
Brazil, born in Campanha (MG), had seen how field workers often died from snake accidents. In his research, he found that the antivenom developed at the time by European scientists did not work against the venom of the animals here. “The serum is specific for each gender, and this is true for the whole world”, explains Puorto. “At that time, of the 20,000 accidents that occurred with snakes in the country, 5,000 ended in deaths, while today, of 30,000 accidents per year, the lethality is no more than 0.5%, and that’s because Brazil is big and it still happens. of the bitten person not arriving in time to a place where there is the serum”, he adds.
By the end of the year, Puorto guarantees that the institute’s newest venture, the Vaccine Museum, will be open to the public, which was born out of public interest aroused by the widespread news about immunizations in the long months at the height of the pandemic. The space is being curated by Puorto himself in what was once the headquarters of Fazenda Butantan. “It is in this building, where it all began, that the future lies”, he says proudly, remembering that it was there where Vital Brazil himself lived to develop his work without facing the difficulties of crossing the Pinheiros River in a cart. The installation has preserved as much as possible the original structure of the mansion, but promises to be a great attraction for the public to learn more about what the different vaccines are and how they work.
In times of dissemination of the anti-vaccination discourse, and the drop in the most basic vaccine coverage, a visit that will be mandatory for all audiences, for sure.
Service
Address: Rua Henrique da Rocha Lima, Butantan, São Paulo
Hours of Operation: Tuesday to Sunday from 8:45 am to 4:00 pm
Prohibited: Admission is free, but the visit to the Historical, Biological, Microbiology and Terra Firme Space museums requires a ticket, which can be purchased at the park’s bookstore and ticket office and is valid for all four museums.
Values
- Child up to 7 years old – exempt
- Child from 8 to 12 years old – BRL 2.50
- Adult -R$ 6.00
- Elderly (over 60 years old) – exempt
- Student – BRL 2.50
- Disabled person – exempt
- Group visit – schedule on the website
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