This colony is twelve kilometres from Itú and eighteen from Sorocaba. From March to May 1931, an emergency leprosarium was constructed, with sixty wooden huts, each holding four rooms with two beds, a total of 480 beds.
Souza-Araújo and three engineers planned a model leprosarium for 750 patients, containing pavilion buildings based on the Carville model, and ‘twinned’ houses. The construction team was decided upon by a public competition; F Palma Travassos and F Avezedo were chosen.
Writing for the Revista de Leprologia de S Paulo in 1934, Dr N Sousa Campos described the Carville-style buildings as ideal for a leprosy colony, as they allow the separation of people not only by form of disease, but also by social class.
The wooden ‘nucleus’ of Pirapitinguí was inaugurated on 7 October 1931, and by 7 December 1931 there were already 279 patients. After the inauguration of the new part, numbers rapidly increased, to 1 735 in 1936.
(Araujo, H C S. ‘A lepra e as organizações anti-leprosas do Brasil em 1936’. Mem. Inst. Osw Cruz, 1937:32, 146-8)