| Summary: | Venezuelan public health by the end of nineteenth century was, to a large extent, based on ideas developed by President Antonio Guzmán Blanco, together with intellectuals and publicists, and first implemented through political and legal reforms during his rule from 1870-1877. A key aspect of Blanco’s administration on that regard was a controversy over Catholic cemeteries in northern Caracas, stirred up by the press and supported by contemporary hygienist theory, giving the state an excuse to shut them down. Guzmán's ideas showed European influences on his re-urbanization plans for the capital, which aimed, among other things, to gain control over cemeteries which until then had been under the Catholic Church’s control. This led to the construction of secular graveyards in the outskirts of the city.
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