Contribuições do Laboratório de Entomologia da Faculdade de Saúde Pública para o conhecimento de endemias brasileiras

Abstract

Paulo is now completing fifty years of uninterrupted activity dedicated to research along the lines developed in the field of the great endemic diseases that devastate Brazil. Having begun with taxonomic studies, attention was then soon drawn to those relating to the biology and ecology of vectors, especially to Culicidae, phlebotominae and Triatominae. Thus our knowledge of the epidemiological pattern related to infections spread by these insects has been greatly enriched. Many have been the contributions made on the genera Anopheles, Aedes, Culex, Psorophora, Haemagogus, Sabethes, Phlebotominae and Ceratopogonidae to the development of our taxonomic understanding. The treatises "American Sabethinae" (Lane & Cerqueira, 1942), "Neotropical Culicidae" (Lane, 1953), and "Culicoides of the neotropical region" (Forattini, 1957), as well as the four volumes of the "Medical Entomology" (Forattini, 1962, 1965 and 1973) are notable landmarks in this field. The morphological aspects of the text of these treatises deserve special emphasis, with their original illustrations or drawings, which, because of the faithful representation of these specific structures, together with the keys for the identification of the species, reveal the didactic nature of the work and the clear reflection of the concern for the teaching of Entomology. The works of Lane and Forattini are still much used by researchers and students who study the Brazilian or neotropical fauna-having been used, in fact, beyond our national frontiers. New taxonomic studies continue, increasingly, to be developed.