was remarkable place. Meanwhile, the ruthless destruction of forests has, as a result, the obstruction of rivers and consequent overflow, which favored the formation of swamps. And polluted water stops transmitting mosquitoes emerged from terrible fevers.
Many fled the place that, practically, it was uninhabitable. Before the land healthy and fertile, the vegetation cover is typical of mangroves. In 1850, the situation was a real disaster, because the epidemic emerged, thanks to the ingenuity of the safest places to flee. The properties have been abandoned. The situation was of great shortage and would remain so for some decades yet.
With the introduction of rail transport, the situation worsened considerably. The railroad D. Pedro II called the capital of the Empire to the present city of Burns. The production of the Paraíba Valley is now sold in this way, the rivers and inland gradually ceased to be used and the river ports have lost importance. The region iguassuana enter into frank decay.
With the abolition of slavery in 1888, there were several changes in social and economic life of the Baixada Fluminense. The sewerage works were abandoned, there was a delay in the conditions for health and various diseases have emerged. Among them, malaria and Chagas disease.
In the government of Nilo Pecanha, Meriti had a modest improvement in the area of sanitation, which, even with the arrival of water in 1916, in the current Square Pacifier. But only in the government of Getúlio Vargas, who created the Commission on Reorganization of the Baixada Fluminense, the region advanced. By 1945, more than six thousand miles of rivers were clean, their beds removing 45 million cubic meters of earth. In this work, the rivers are no longer breeding of mosquito, decreasing in much the number of diseases in the region.
When the railroad reached the valley of Meriti, the region began to suffer the effects of urban sprawl of the city of Rio de Janeiro
