[History of human epidemic and endemic diseases in the southwest Indian Ocean]. / Histoire des épidémies et des endémoépidémies humaines dans le sud-ouest de l'océan Indien.

Smallpox has been known in the Mascarene Islands since 1729, and in 1898, the vaccinogenic and anti-rabies Institute of Tananarive, the future Pasteur Institute of Madagascar, was created to combat it. Cholera first arrived in the Mascarenes in 1819, but did not affect the Comoros Islands and Madagascar until the current pandemic. Bubonic plague has beset the ports of Madagascar and the Mascarenes since 1898. Girard and Robic developed the anti-plague vaccine in 1931 at the Pasteur Institute of Madagascar. The Mascarenes lost their reputation as Eden when malaria arrived in 1841, and this disease remains prominent in Madagascar and Comoros. Leprosy has been known in La Réunion since 1726 and is still very present in Mayotte, Anjouan, and Madagascar. Leptospirosis is a public health problem, except in Madagascar and the Comoros. Dengue, chikungunya, and Rift Valley fever are also present. HIV/AIDS is not a major concern, except in Mauritius, where it was spread by injection drug use, in the Seychelles and in Madagascar's largest cities. Madagascar is the principal site worldwide of chromoblastomycosis, first described there in 1914.

Adolpho Lutz and the origins of medical entomology in Brazil.

Adolpho Lutz (1855-1940) formed a bridge between the Bahian Tropicalist School and post-Mansonian medicine. Before taking over as head of the São Paulo Bacteriological Institute (1893), Lutz traveled through a variety of regions and delved into various disciplines. In the 1880s, he was already arguing that leprosy was transmitted by mosquitoes. Carbuncles, cholera, and typhoid fever were then the accepted models for investigating the etiology of infectious diseases. Following the discovery of how malaria was transmitted, attention turned to hematophagous diptera. Physicians, bacteriologists, zoologists, and veterinarians reshaped the network of actors involved in the 'hunt' for the agents and transmitters of diseases, as they began relying on analogies with malaria and yellow fever. Edwin Ray Lankester, director of the British Museum (Natural History), launched then a worldwide investigation into species that might be linked to human disease. The species described by Lutz and his proposed classification system were vital to Frederick Theobald's fundamental work in medical entomology, published in the early twentieth century. In 1908, Lutz brought with him to the Oswaldo Cruz Institute a remarkable quantity of research and experiments in all branches of the newly created "tropical medicine," devoted especially to entomology.

The Córdoba caliphate and infectious diseases

Durante il Califfato di Cordova e negli anni immediatamente successivi vi fu una intensa fioritura di studi medici, come viene testimoniato dai numerosi documenti relative anche a parecchie malattie di origine microbica quali: tetatno, gangrena, avvelenamenti e tossinfezioni alimentari, colera, peste, meningite, diarrea, dissenteria, infezioni della bocca e dei denti, pustole e foruncoli, infezioni di ferite, impetigine, tonsillite, erisipela, polmonite, infezioni delle vie urinaire, infezioni sessualmente transmesse, otite, congiuntivite, tigna, mughetto, malaria, teniasi, infestazione da pulci, scabbia, vaiolo, morbillo, tracoma, raffreddori, poliomielite e rabbia. Esistono importanti saggi sulla natura contagiosa di queste malattie e sui rimedi terapeutici. I contributi dottrinali maggiormente pregevoli dell'epoca furono dati da autorevoli medici quali Isaac, Arib ibn Said, Abulcasis, Averroè, Maimonide e Al-Gafiqi.