Hist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
March 2013
The article analyzes two periodicals published by the chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer - as they played into scientific relations between Brazil and Germany. At the close of World War I, a number of countries, including Brazil, broke off political, economic, and scientific relations with Germany. Germany's medical and scientific community moved to implement a policy of disseminating Germanism through science and medicine, aimed above all at Latin America.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
December 2011
The Brazilian Paulo Vanzolini is one of the leading herpetologists worldwide. Besides his publications as a zoologist and his activities as a former museum curator and policymaker, Vanzolini pursued a long-life career as a musician and contributed to many different fields such as biostatistics, biogeography and the history of science. The paper analyzes his historical contributions to a key chapter of science in Southern America, the legacy of the so-called traveler naturalists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
June 2011
The article explores Brazilian investigators' contributions to research on the protozoan causative agent of malaria. Focusing on the work of Henrique Aragão and Wladimir Lobato Paraense, it underscores the importance of avian malaria in elucidating human malaria and treatment options, and also examines the network of scientific relations forged by these researchers, their shared research agendas, exchange of information with other researchers, and role within the international context of scientific discoveries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article presents the development of the journals "Revista Médica de Hamburgo" and "Revista Médica Germano-Ibero-Americana," which were created to promote and disseminate the German science among the medical community in Latin America and Spain between the two World Wars. Shaken by the loss of Germany's colonies in Africa, the difficulties faced due to post-war economy, and the restrictions imposed by the armistice, the Germans sought to restore their cultural and scientific prestige through such initiative.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
July 2009
This article analyzes the discovery of Chagas disease and the parasite that causes it (Trypanosoma cruzi) by Carlos Chagas in 1908/1909, with a special focus on the scientific and social context in which this occurred. Its inclusion in the international debate on European tropical medicine--especially with researchers from the German school of protozoology--and its connection with discussions on the modernization of the recently established Brazilian Republic are also examined. The discovery of Chagas disease became a decisive aspect in the scientific project that Oswaldo Cruz sought to establish at the institute that bears his name.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis research note proposes hypotheses and frameworks for the study of the dynamics of the German and French medical and scientific movement aimed at Latin America, and Brazil in particular, between 1919 and 1942. It also seeks to comprehend to what extent the efforts at intellectual cooperation and the concomitant flow of ideas, institutional models, common research agendas, and action strategies aimed at expanding the Franco-Germanic field of influence in this part of the American continent, were put into practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
December 2006
To what activities and topics does a historian in health and medicine, whose articles and books have become fundamental references for scholars of the area, devote her time? Feminism, counter-culture, medical education, global health, the role of international health organizations, and knowledge sharing in the health history are some of the subjects Elizabeth Fee addresses in this interview given at Fiocruz in April where she presented the 2006 inaugural class to the Graduate Program in History of Health Sciences at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz. The topic of her lecture was "The World Health Organization and AIDS: what can we learn from history?"
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis project presents the complete set of letters between the family of a Hansen's disease (leprosy) sufferer in the state of Maranhão, in the Northeast of Brazil, and the doctor and bacteriologist Adolpho Lutz. For more than twenty years Fabricio Caldas de Oliveira and Numa Pires de Oliveira, father and son, exchanged a steady flow of letters with the scientist in pursuit of a cure for the disease that had assailed Numa since childhood. The 24 letters compiled here paint a unique portrait of the medical and social drama confronted by this family, and the results of the use of chaulmoogra oil and other medications in their search for alternative treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
February 2004
During his years of study in Switzerland and Germany, Adolpho Lutz published his first articles on zoology, clinical practice, and therapeutics. In Limeira, São Paulo, he began studies on animal and human diseases caused by germs and parasites. In 1885-86, Lutz traveled to Hamburg to study the morphology of germs related to skin diseases, in conjunction with Paul Gerson Unna, one of Germany's foremost dermatologists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
August 2003
This text presents an evaluation of the activities of the Adolpho Lutz project and a history of tropical medicine in Brazil: progress in the preparation of texts and Lutz's correspondence for publication, the description and treatment of components of his papers, which are found at the National Museum. Appendices include a list of posts, titles, awards and decorations received by Adolpho Lutz, his bibliography and a selection of letters received by him.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHist Cienc Saude Manguinhos
August 2003
Round worm is a parasite, Onchocera, and is transmitted by a black fly, simulidae; it can cause blindness. Originally from the African continent, where it is widespread, in Latin America it was first discovered in Guatemala in 1917; later instances were recorded in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. The establishment of this disease in the Americas has intrigued scientists since then and today it is an open question.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe authors reconstruct Bertha Lutz's efforts to preserve the memory of her father, Adolpho, after his death on 6 October 1940, by studying the papers of both father and daughter that are held in the Archives of the National Museum. Bertha Lutz's plans included the construction of a museum for Adolpho Lutz's collections, the publication of his complete works and a biography. A pioneer in the feminist movement and researcher at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, Bertha was always a faithful assistant to her father and her own professional life followed a line of research opened by him.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF