Hansen versus Neisser: controvérsias científicas na 'descoberta' do bacilo da lepra / Hansen versus Neisser: scientific controversies over the 'discovery' of the bacillus of leprosy

Analisa o conturbado processo científico que levou à 'descoberta' do bacilo causador da lepra, na Europa, na segunda metade do século XIX, e que envolveu alguns dos principais nomes da ciência médica do período, como Robert Koch, Rudolf Virchow e Armauer Hansen. Compreendida como paradigma científico, tal 'descoberta' será aqui reexaminada historicamente através de fontes primárias ainda pouco trabalhadas na América Latina. Objetiva-se oferecer novos instrumentos de análise e de reflexão para a historiografia das ciências, posto que serão identificados aspectos culturais, sociais e mesmo nacionalistas na construção desse paradigma.

This paper analyzes the turbulent scientific process that led to the 'discovery' of the bacillus that causes leprosy, which occurred in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and which involved some of the leading names in medical science of the period, such as Robert Koch, Rudolf Virchow and Armauer Hansen. Understood as a scientific paradigm, this 'discovery' is reexamined here based on primary sources as yet only partially researched in Latin America. The scope of this paper is to provide new instruments for analysis and reflection for the historiography of the sciences, as the cultural, social and even nationalist aspects are identified in the construction of this paradigm.

Memories and history of Hansen's disease in Brazil told by witnesses (1960-2000).

This report is a preliminary result of a survey on memories and history of Hansen's disease, or 'hanseniasis', prepared by the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) using statements from those who have been afflicted by the disease or those that have fought against it. It outlines the methodology used by the authors and gives a succinct history of Hansen's disease in Brazil, together wish information on the stage of the survey with extracts from our archives of statements. The founding and the role of Movement for the Reintegration of People Afflicted by Hansen's Disease (Morhan) are explained in the testimony of Thomas Frist, a social scientist who worked in Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s, when the country's old colonies were being restructured, and Cristiano Torres, a former patient who spent time in prevention centers and leproseries in Pará state and who is now active in proposing new policy for the control of Hansen's disease.

Vida de leprosa: the testimony of a woman living with Hansen's disease in the Peruvian Amazon, 1947.

This is the narrative of a patient made before, during and after being incarcerated in an agricultural colony in the Peruvian Amazon. In a vivid style, it narrates the decay of the body, the stigma and the compulsive segregation, as well as the hope for a better life. It is the perspective of a patient, something that is difficult to find when researching the history of health. The original publication was possible thanks to the German physician Maxime H. Kuczynski-Godard and thanks to the Institute of Social Medicine of the University of San Marcos that was directed by the professor of hygiene Carlos Enrique Paz-Soldán. We have used this publication for this transcription. Kuczynski-Godard was a German medical doctor that arrived in Peru in the mid 1930s and organized valuable activities in the Peruvian jungle as a part of an effort, which eventually failed, of the Peruvian State to colonize, or really to "civilize" the Amazon.

[Researching documents on the history of hansen's disease in Brazil]. / Pesquisa documental sobre a história da hanseniase no Brasil.

This article corresponds to part of the results of a research on leprosy-related sources developed in several institutions in the city of Rio de Janeiro. At Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, Arquivo Nacional and Biblioteca Nacional, banks, indexes, official documents and photos on the administration of leprosaria and articles on the treatment of the disease have been investigated. At Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brazil (CPDOC-FGV), several files have been researched, mainly those with information on the health policies of the first Vargas administration (1930-1945). This research is part of the International Leprosy Association Global Project on the History of Leprosy. Its results can be accessed at the site http://www.leprosyhistory.org

The papers of Stanley Browne: leprologist and medical missionary (1907-1986).

This article elaborates a significant archival acquisition that supplement the collection documents related to the life and work of Stanley George Browne held at the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine in London, specifically his work in the Belgian Congo (from 1936 to 1959), at Uzuakoli in Nigeria (1959 to 1966), in London with the Leprosy Study Centre (1966-1980), and also in his international capacity as leprosy consultant. It also briefly refers to an endangered collection of documents, photographs, files and correspondence held in a small museum in Culion Sanatorium, The Philippines. This research is part of the International Leprosy Association Global Project on the History of Leprosy. Its results can be accessed at the site http://www.leprosyhistory.org

[Adolpho Lutz and the history of tropical medicine in Brazil]. / 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 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.

[Professor Jean-Charles Sournia and the French Society of Medicine]. / Le Pr J.-Ch. Sournia et la Société française d'Histoire de la Médecine.

The authors recount the important contribution of Professor Sournia as he worked for the French Society of Medicine History for thirty-five years. As a devoted general secretary he managed in 1973 the Society officially recognised as a state-approved institution. Then in 1979 and 1980, he was the President of our Society with authority and awareness of need for some reforms. He was an attentive chief editor of the journal "Histoires des Sciences Médicales" in which many of his original papers demonstrated his wide-ranging education and the diversity of his interests: Arab Medicine and Surgery books, History of Public Health, History of Medical Jargon, the lexicography by Littré, the major epidemics included leprosy, many medical biographies etc. Thus it was not surprising that he has published his "Histoire de la Médecine et des Médecins".

[Frans Johan Rabbe: the father of the history of medicine in Finland]. / Frans Johan Rabbe och källorna till medicinens historia i Finland.

F. J. Rabbe is the one who can be regarded as the real father of the history of medicine in Finland and who also was a member of the Medical Board. It was Rabbe who already in 1843 wrote the first paper on the history of different types of hospitals such as the leper hospitals, the county hospitals, the hospitals for veneral diseases as well as the military and psychiatric hospitals which gradually had been established in Finland since the middle of the 14th century. Rabbe also collected and published all the medical laws and decrees issued in Finland between 1683 and 1845. Later Rabbe published a lot of different statistical material on medical conditions in Finland as well as biographies of medical doctors. He also made a comprehensive work on the history of medicine in Finland, about 3000 handwritten pages, which unfortunately only has been saved as a manuscript and has not been published(5).

[Historiography of diseases in Finland]. / "Ovatko taudit itsenäisiä, eläväisiä olentoja?" - eli voimmeko kirjoittaa niiden historian.

The 19th century was a period of comprehensive, "big" histories of diseases. German historiographers of diseases were especially prominent. World-famous is August Hirsch's Handbuch der historisch-geographischen Pathologie (the second edition appeared in three volumes in 1881-1886). The first volume of the Finn Immanuel Ilmoni's (1797-1856) Bidrag till Nordens sjukdoms-historia (A History of Diseases in the Nordic Countries) was published in 1846, the second volume in 1849 and the third in 1853. In this book Ilmoni treated the history of disease up to the year 1800. He planned a fourth volume, dealing with the 19th century, but this book was never published. Ilmoni was strongly influenced by the ideas of Thomas Sydenham and the German exponents of Naturphilosophie. Ilmoni's "ontological" concept of disease was rejected by Erik Alexander Ingman, a contemporary Finnish representative of "modern" medical ideas. After Ilmoni, nobody has attempted to write a comprehensive history of diseases in Finland, but histories of cholera (Carl Qvist, 1872) lepra (Lars Fagerlund, 1886), malaria (Richard Sievers, 1891) and pulmonary tuberculosis (Woldemar Backman and Severi Savonen, 1934) have been published. Diseases in Finland received very little attention in the "world histories" of diseases. After Hirsch only one comprehensive "world history" of diseases has been published (1993).