Jaime Larry Benchimol

Adolpho Lutz and controversies over the transmission of leprosy by mosquitoes

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 Germanys foremost dermatologists. He proposed the inclusion of Hansens and Kochs bacilli in a new genus. In 1889, Unna nominated his student as physician-in-chief of the Leper Settlement on Molokai Island, Hawaii. From then on, Lutz sustained the theory that the disease was transmitted by mosquitos. He conducted research to prove this theory when he was head of the Instituto Bacteriológico de São Paulo (1893-1908) and, later, after he moved to the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (1908-1940). Although this research was not successful, on commissions and at congresses in which he participated until his death in October 1940, he still held to his conviction that leprosy was transmitted by mosquitoes.

Medicina, ciência e poder: as relações entre França, Alemanha e Brasil no período de 1919 a 1942

This 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.

Adolpho Lutz: um esboço biográfico

This article portrays the family origins and life story of Adolpho Lutz (1855-1940) up to his transfer to the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz in 1908. His life history is used as a motif for an analysis of the institution of pasteurian and tropical medicine in Brazil. His university and postgraduate study in German-speaking Europe are examined, as are his activities as a clinician and researcher on subjects related to helminthology, parasitology, veterinary medicine and bacteriology in the interior of Sao Paulo state; his stay at the Molokai leprosarium in Hawaii; and the medical controversies in which he participated as head of the Bacteriological Institute of Sao Paulo, especially those on cholera, dysenteries, typhoid fever, malaria and yellow fever.

Domingos José Freire e os primordios da bacteriologia no Brasil

The article examines the trajectory of Domingos Jose Freire, a bacteriologist who attained great national and international renown in the final quarter of the last century for claiming to have discovered the yellow-fever microbe and a vaccine that was administered to thousands of people. The article reviews the main controversies protagonized by this scientist and endeavors to show the role he played in the enthronement of Pasteurian medicine in Brazil.

Malaria and Quinine Resistance: A Medical and Scientific Issue between Brazil and Germany (1907–19)

This article addresses the discussion about quinine-resistant malaria plasmodium in the early decades of the twentieth century. Observed by Arthur Neiva in Rio de Janeiro in 1907, the biological and social resistance of malaria sufferers to preventive and curative treatment with quinine was corroborated three years later by Oswaldo Cruz during the construction of the Madeira-Mamoré Railway in the Brazilian Amazon. Likewise in 1910, ailing German workers were transferred from Brazil to Hamburg’s Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases, where quinine resistance was confirmed by Bernard Nocht and Heinrich Werner. When the First World War saw failures in treating and preventing malaria with quinine along with violent outbreaks of the disease on the Turkish and Balkan fronts, resistance to this alkaloid became the topic of the day within the field of experimental medicine in Germany. New attempts were made to account for the resistance, especially by the physician Ernst Rodenwaldt, who explored the topic by applying modern theories on heredity. The present article offers a preliminary survey and analysis of pronouncements about quinine resistance, shedding new light on the circulation of knowledge in the field of tropical medicine.

Adolpho Lutz e a história da medicina tropical no Brasil

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 Lutzs 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.

História, Ciências, Saúde - Manguinhos: um balanço de 12 anos de circulação ininterrupta

The article analyzes the trajectory of Historia, Ciencias, Saude - Manguinhos since it was first released in 1994. This multidisciplinary journal opens its pages to unpublished, peer-reviewed articles, images, documents, interviews, and other material that address issues and important figures in the history of medicine, public health, and the life sciences. Approaching from the perspectives of health and of historiography, the article explores the context in which the journal was born and discusses the daily workings of a scientific editorial office. Tables and graphs illustrate variations in the topics submitted for publication, acceptance and rejection rates for articles, the geographical origin of authors, and how the profiles of contributors and readers of the print and online versions differ in terms of their areas of interest.

Bertha Lutz e a construção da memória de Adolpho Lutz

The authors reconstruct Bertha Lutzs 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 Lutzs plans included the construction of a museum for Adolpho Lutzs collections, the publication of his complete works and a biograpy. 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. For more then 30 years, she dedicated herself to the consecration of her fathers name, lobbying politicians and scientists in Brazil and abroad. She was not as successful as she had hoped and Bertha Lutz recorded in her will her wish that the works and biography of Adolpho Lutz be published by future generations.

Pensar o Sistema Único de Saúde do século XXI: entrevista com Lígia Bahia

This interview with Ligia Bahia explores evaluations of the first 25 years of Brazil’s Sistema Unico de Saude (SUS) and analyzes the project’s progress, impasses, and missteps. Bahia is critical of both tendencies currently found within SUS: the one that sees the system as aimed at equity and the other posing equality as its goal. She criticizes the ambivalence that various spheres of government have displayed in their decisions regarding large corporate groups and private health insurance plans, which conflict with the ideas of SUS. She evaluates the participation of doctors and other healthcare professionals in the system. Lastly, she analyzes the emergence of identity politics, which are missing from the public health reform project, whose emphasis was on equality.

Fight for survival: the life of a Hansen's disease sufferer through his correspondence with Adolpho Lutz

This project presents the complete set of letters between the family of a Hansens 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.