The South American medical communities in the genesis of the tropical medicine: construction and circulation of knowledge on American leishmaniasis in the beginning of the twentieth century

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how researchers from different South American countries took part in the process of globalisation of the tropical medicine paradigm, through research on leishmaniasis found in this region. The main objective of the present article is to highlight the role of these researchers, as well as of their scientific institutions, in a global history of tropical medicine which surpassed European borders and its imperialistic practices. At the same time, it will be identified the renewal of the tropical medicine paradigm in the South American context. During the beginning of the twentieth century, leishmaniasis became an important health issue in tropical areas, whereas the mere usage of the repertoire of the medical knowledge, produced in Europe up until that time, revealed itself as an insufficient instrument to help solve the problem. Hereupon, this matter was, above all, an open discussion, which required great skills and refined techniques of tropical medicine for its study. For this reason, it enabled the members of the regional medical communities to establish vigorous communication channels with medical centres, located in other continents, that had already been giving much deserved importance to leishmaniasis as an exciting scientific theme.