A century of the Journal of Helminthology.

The Journal of Helminthology (JHL) was first published in 1923 and was originally created as a house journal of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The JHL was devised by its first Editor, Robert Leiper, to allow for rapid publication of results from the Department of Helminthology and its offshoot the Institute of Agricultural Parasitology. From this initial narrow focus the JHL has subsequently become not only internationally recognized but also retained its original emphasis on morphological, taxonomic and life cycle studies while embracing the emergence of new fields and technological advancements. The present review covers the historical development of the JHL over the last century from 1923 to 2023.

80 Years of the Medicine and Tropical Hygiene Center in Gdynia (1937-2017): The Pioneer Pre-War Years 1937-1939.

The present Interdepartmental Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia of the Medical University of Gdansk was formally established in 1939 by the Order of June 5, 1939, of the Minister of Social Welfare, Marian Zyndram-Koscialkowski. However, the Branch of the National Institute of Hygiene in Gdynia was founded 2 years earlier, in 1937 (the first head was Dr. Med. Jerzy Jakóbkiewicz [1892-1953]), and its fruitful activity was ennobled 2 years later by increasing its rank and adding the name "Marine and Tropical Hygiene Institute". These facts are very little known, and therefore worth presenting in the jubilee years of the 80th anniversary of the institution.

Desde el ISET al InDRE. III. Instituto de Salubridad y Enfermedades Tropicales: crisis y renovación, 1965-1989.

This paper analyzes the situation and the changes made in the Institute of Sanitary and Tropical Diseases between 1965 and 1989 to become the National Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference. Three major stages are identified during this period: crisis, transition and renewal. The factors that led to the crisis, the decisions made to overcome it and to harmonize the work of laboratories with epidemiological and public health criteria are discussed. The recognition obtained by researchers of the Institute despite the crisis is described, as well as the way the institution managed to continue with projects despite the changing global situation. The transition included the arrival of a new generation of professionals with modern computer-based and conceptual tools and the remarkably well met challenge of participating in national surveys with rigorous criteria. All this moved the institution to define its profile towards diagnosis and reference.

El artículo analiza la situación y los cambios efectuados en el Instituto de Salubridad y Enfermedades Tropicales entre 1965 y 1989 para transformarse en el Instituto Nacional de Diagnóstico y Referencia Epidemiológicos. Se identifican tres grandes etapas en el periodo: crisis, transición y renovación. Se señalan los elementos que llevaron a la crisis, las decisiones que se tomaron para salir de ella y armonizar el trabajo de los laboratorios con criterios epidemiológicos y de salud pública. Se citan las distinciones obtenidas por investigadores del Instituto a pesar de la crisis y se describe cómo la institución logró seguir con proyectos a pesar de la cambiante situación mundial. La transición incluyó la llegada de una nueva generación de profesionales con modernas herramientas informáticas y conceptuales y el desafío de participar en encuestas nacionales con criterios rigurosos. Todo ello movió a la institución a definir su perfil hacia el diagnóstico y la referencia.

Máxime "Max" Kuczynski: Father of Peruvian Public Health and of the 66th President of Peru.

Máxime Kuczynski (1890-1967), a medical pioneer born in Poland, was renowned for his work in tropical medicine in the Peruvian jungle, especially on Bartonella baciliformis, the cutaneous form known as verruga peruana of deadly Oroya fever. His unique university training in anthropology, philosophy, and parasitology lead to a participatory observational method of practicing medicine. At the request of the Peruvian President, he ventured into the Peruvian Amazon in 1936 to establish a public health service in partnership with indigenous populations. In June 2016, his son Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Prime Minister of Peru, was elected the 66th President of Peru.

To Place or Not to Place: Toward an Environmental History of Modern Medicine.

Reviewing recent, overlapping work by historians of medicine and health and of environmental history, this article proposes a further agenda upon which scholars in both fields may converge. Both environmental and medical historians can seek to understand the past two centuries of medical history in terms of a seesaw dialogue over the ways and means by which physicians and other health professionals did, and did not, consider the influence of place-airs and waters included-on disease. Modernizing and professionalizing as well as new styles of science nourished attendant aspirations for a clinical place neutrality, for a medicine in which patients' own places didn't matter to what doctors thought or did. The rise of place neutrality from the late nineteenth century onward also had close and enabling historical ties to the near-simultaneous formation of place-defined specialties-tropical medicine, bacteriological public health, and industrial medicine and hygiene.

Robert Leiper and the London School of (Hygiene and) Tropical Medicine.

Robert Leiper is best known for his discoveries in the fields of Guinea worm and schistosomiasis, but he also made major contributions to parasitology during his career as helminthologist and later Professor of Helminthology at the London School of (Hygiene and) Tropical Medicine. He was particularly involved in establishing the London School's Winches Farm Field Station and stimulating the research carried out there, work that has made a number of important contributions to our understanding of parasites. Leiper founded the Commonwealth Bureau of Agricultural Parasitology and was also instrumental in initiating, and editing, the Journal of Helminthology, Helminthological Abstracts and establishing, indirectly, Protozoological Abstracts.

Inside Doctor Livingstone: a Scottish icon's encounter with tropical disease.

Dr David Livingstone died on May 1st 1873. He was 60 years old and had spent much of the previous 30 years walking across large stretches of Southern Africa, exploring the terrain he hoped could provide new environments in which Europeans and Africans could cohabit on equal terms and bring prosperity to a part of the world he saw ravaged by the slave trade. Just days before he died, he wrote in his journal about the permanent stream of blood that he was emitting related to haemorrhoids and the acute intestinal pain that had left him incapable of walking. What actually killed Livingstone is unknown, yet the years spent exploring sub-Saharan Africa undoubtedly exposed him to a gamut of parasitic and other infectious diseases. Some of these we can be certain of. He wrote prolifically and described his encounters with malaria, relapsing fevers, parasitic helminths and more. His graphic writing allows us to explore his own encounters with tropical diseases and how European visitors to Africa considered them at this time. This paper outlines Livingstone's life and his contributions to understanding parasitic diseases.

The Golden Age of parasitology-1875-1925: the Scottish contributions.

The period 1875-1925 was remarkable in the history of parasitology partly because of the number of significant discoveries made, especially the elucidation of important life cycles, and partly because of the achievements of the clinicians and scientists who made these discoveries. What is remarkable is that so many of these individuals were Scots. Preeminent in this pantheon was Patrick Manson, who not only discovered the mosquito transmission of filarial worms but was instrumental in directly encouraging others to make significant discoveries in the fields of malaria, Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis), onchocerciasis, loiasis and schistosomiasis and, indirectly, sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis. This chapter describes and discusses the contributions made by Douglas Argyll-Robertson, Donald Blacklock, David Bruce, David Cunningham, Robert Leiper, William Leishman, George Low, Patrick Manson, Muriel Robertson and Ronald Ross together with short biographical notes.

Glasgow encounters with tropical diseases.

The period 1875-1925 was remarkable in the history of parasitology mainly for the elucidation of the life cycles of parasites causing important parasitic diseases and the incrimination of vectors in their transmission. These discoveries were made by a small number of scientists working in the tropics a number of whom were Scots. Sir Patrick Manson, the discoverer of the mosquito transmission of filarial worms, was instrumental in directly or indirectly encouraging other Scots including Douglas Argyll-Robertson, David Blacklock, David Bruce, David Cunningham, Robert Leiper, William Leishman, George Low, Muriel Robertson and Ronald Ross, who all made significant discoveries across a wide spectrum of tropical diseases. Among these, William Leishman, Robert Leiper and Muriel Robertson were all graduates of the University of Glasgow and their achievements in the fields of leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, dracunculiasis and African sleeping sickness, together with subsequent developments in these fields, are the subjects of the ten papers in this Special Issue of Parasitology.

One hundred years of neglect in paediatric schistosomiasis.

Early in the history of schistosomiasis research, children under 5 years of age were known to be infected. Although this problem was recognized over 100 years ago, insufficient action has been taken to address this issue. Under current policy, such infected children only receive their first antiparasitic treatment (praziquantel - PZQ) upon entry into primary school as current mass drug administration programmes typically target school-aged children. For many infected children, they will wait up to 6 years before receiving their first medication and significant schistosomiasis-related morbidity may have already established. This inequity would not be accepted for other diseases. To unveil some of the reasons behind this neglect, it is paramount to understand the intricate historical relationship between schistosomiasis and British Imperial medicine, to underline its lasting influence on today's public health priorities. This review presents a perspective on the historical neglect of paediatric schistosomiasis, focusing on important gaps that persist from the early days after discovery of this parasite. Looking to end this inequity, we address several issues that need to be overcome to move forward towards the lasting success of schistosomiasis control and elimination efforts.

A centenary of Robert T. Leiper's lasting legacy on schistosomiasis and a COUNTDOWN on control of neglected tropical diseases.

Part of Robert T. Leiper's (1881-1969) lasting legacy in medical helminthology is grounded on his pioneering work on schistosomiasis (Bilharzia). Having undertaken many expeditions to the tropics, his fascination with parasite life cycles typically allowed him to devise simple preventive measures that curtailed transmission. Building on his formative work with others in Africa and Asia, and again in Egypt in 1915, he elucidated the life cycles of African schistosomes. His mandate, then commissioned by the British War Office, was to prevent and break transmission of this disease in British troops. This he did by raising standing orders based on simple water hygiene measures. Whilst feasible in military camp settings, today their routine implementation is sadly out of reach for millions of Africans living in poverty. Whilst we celebrate the centenary of Leiper's research we draw attention to some of his lesser known colleagues, then focus on schistosomiasis in Uganda discussing why expanded access to treatment with praziquantel is needed now. Looking to WHO 2020 targets for neglected tropical diseases, we introduce COUNTDOWN, an implementation research consortium funded by DFID, UK, which fosters the scale-up of interventions and confirm the current relevance of Leiper's original research.

An outlier in public health history in India: A.T.W. Simeons's scheme for rural medical relief, Kolhapur, 1943-47.

It is customary to date provision of health services in rural India to the Report of the Bhore Committee (1946) and its descendants. It is presumed that in pre-Bhore India (the last half-century of the British era) the rural public health scenario was devoid of discerning commentators and practical effort. The presumption is misleading. Historical material shows that attempts, official and non-official, to improve rural environments and attend to the health problems of villagers were not wanting. Such efforts followed two main, sometimes intersecting, streams, namely sanitation and medical relief. I examine a little-known, yet noteworthy effort in the latter category, connected with Bombay Province, which incorporated in fledgling form modern practice in rural healthcare delivery. The central character was a medical expatriate of German ancestry (but contested nationality), whose connection with Bombay spanned almost two decades including the period of the Second World War. Albert Theodore William Simeons (1900-70) was a specialist in tropical medicine whose intellectual interests and facile pen ranged wide. Providence and the paranoia of the war-time Government of British India saw him in 1943 as Director of Public Health in the princely state of Kolhapur. Here he set up and supervised a novel scheme for 'Rural Medical Relief' centred on trained villagers as first-line providers of medical treatment. The scheme endured after Simeons's departure from India, and worked well enough to be remembered post-1947 by senior medical personnel of the time and also (but without crediting him) in official publications. The Kolhapur experience also inspired a first-of-its kind fictional work by this multi-faceted personality. Archival material available in India relating to Simeons's years at Kolhapur is trifling. Other primary sources have therefore been utilized to rescue the history.

The Educational Legacy of the UPR School of Tropical Medicine: Curricula, Faculty, Students (1926-1949).

This essay discusses the educational evolution of the University of Puerto Rico-School of Tropical Medicine (UPR-STM) under the auspices of Columbia University. It takes a closer look to what was taught, who taught it and who were the students benefitting from the educational, learning and advanced research activities. It highlights some characteristics of the educational environment that aimed to harvest a well-trained group of scientists, academicians, and practitioners. It examines the characteristics of the faculty and graduates and their role in the teaching and dissemination of knowledge in tropical medicine and closely related fields. The curricula was characterized for its flexibility to accommodate the students' clinical and research interests. With the advent of the 1940s the School started offering public health professionals degrees in addition to the former research-based training. This brought tensions associated to professionalization, the diversification of purposes, the expansion without sufficient resources, and the opening to different levels of students. Maintaining a cadre of well-trained prestigious faculty was always a struggle. Strategies such as visiting professors and joint and ad-honorem appointments were used. Agreements with universities around the world, philanthropic institutions, professional associations, and with different branches of the local and federal government supplemented the resources of the School. In return, the School offered an environment committed to educational standards, networking and a wealth of data for study and discovery.

Marvels and Shadows: Science and Education at the University of Puerto Rico School of Tropical Medicine under the Auspices of Columbia University: An Introduction.

This essay introduces a series of five historical articles on the scientific and educational contributions of the University of Puerto Rico School of Tropical Medicine (STM), under the auspices of Columbia University (1926-1949), to the fields of tropical medicine and public health. The articles will appear in several consecutive issues, and will address various themes as follows: 1) historical antecedents of the STM, particularly institutional precedents; 2) the educational legacy of the STM; 3) a history of the STM scientific journal ("The Puerto Rico Journal of Public Health and Tropical Medicine"); 4) the scientific practices and representations that prevailed at the institution; and, 5) a brief sociocultural history of malaria in Puerto Rico, mainly from the perspective of the STM's scientific and public health activities. The authors have systematically and comprehensively studied a wide variety of documents from different sources based on multiple archives in Puerto Rico, the United States and England. The authors treat the fluid meanings of the examined historical encounters from a research perspective that privilege complex reciprocal interactions, multiple adaptations and elaborate sociocultural constructs present in a collaborative exemplar of the modernity of medical science in a neocolonial tropical context.

The Historical Antecedents of the UPR School of Tropical Medicine.

This article deals with the historical antecedents of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) School of Tropical Medicine (STM) under the auspices of Columbia University. It presents a general view of the social, institutional and conceptual factors that were correlated with the establishment of the STM. The authors start by examining the historical continuities and discontinuities present during the imperial transitions between Spanish colonial and U.S. military medicine at the turn of the 20th century. The clarification of these changes is important for the proper understanding of the emergence of tropical medicine in Puerto Rico, marked by the identification of the biological determinant of the so called "peasants' anemia." The essay focuses on two institutional precursor events: the Puerto Rico Anemia Commissions (1904-1908) and the Institute of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (1912-1914). Their nature and work paved the way for the establishment of the STM. The notions of tropical medicine and diseases are considered as historical concepts. The support of the Rockefeller Foundation to several significant public health activities in Puerto Rico is also examined. Finally, the social and health conditions which prevailed at the time of the creation of the STM have been summarized. In general, the article provides a sense of historical context deemed essential to understand the emergence and evolution of the STM.

The Puerto Rico Journal of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (1925-1950): From a Health Department Bulletin to a UPR School of Tropical Medicine Scientific Journal.

This essay presents a history of the scientific journal of the University of Puerto Rico, School of Tropical Medicine (STM) under the auspices of Columbia University: The Puerto Rico Journal of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. This is the third article in a historical series about the STM, and includes supporting information relevant to the forthcoming articles on the school's scientific endeavors. This article is conceived as a history from the perspective of the literature of journal genre in the field of tropical medicine. The STM scientific journal, precursor of the Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal, had five main stages. First (1925-1927), originated as an official bulletin of the Health Department (Porto Rico Health Review). Second (1927-1929), became a project of mutual collaboration between the Health Department and the STM, and the publication's title reflected the fields of public health and tropical medicine. Third (1929-1932), acquired a scientific focus as it changed to a quarterly science publication. Fourth (1932-1942), became a fully bilingual journal and acquired its definitive name. Fifth (1942-1950), the final phase in which the first Puerto Rican Director became the principal editor until the Journal's dissolution. The analysis of authorship and the content analysis of the topics of diseases, public health and basic sciences, clarify the history of tropical medicine during the first half of the 20th century in Puerto Rico. The article highlights major symbolic events that delve into the understanding of a collaborative exemplar of the modernity of medical science.

The Institutionalization and Professionalization of the Medical Library in Puerto Rico: The Conrad F. Asenjo Library's Legacy.

The discourse about health in Puerto Rico has been constructed using the physician and hospital's perspective or a particular disease or epidemic. Thus far, this approach has not addressed the health library as an object of study. The origins and development of the Conrado F. Asenjo Library (CFAL) will be discussed. Before 1912, there were no medical libraries in Puerto Rico, only private collections. In 1914, the act that created the Institute of Tropical Medicine was amended to allocate funds for the purchase of books to support research in tropical diseases in Puerto Rico. The history of the CFA Library reflects its contribution to issues, concerns, development of research, and to the evolving paradigms in the health field in the Island. Historical documents, such as Bailey K. Ashford's personal papers located at the CFAL and Georgetown University Archives (GU) were evaluated. Institutional reports from the School of Tropical Medicine (STM) and articles published by Puerto Rican physicians such as Dr. Pedro Gutiérrez Igaravídez and Dr. Isaac González Martínez, affiliated to the Institute of Tropical Medicine, were also studied. Finally, references and bibliographies in articles published between 1912 and 1924 were evaluated and consulted to find additional sources.

[From the Local to the Global: French Military Surgeons, Algeria, and "Tropical Pathologies" (1830-1880)]. / Du local au global: Les médecins militaires français, l'Algérie et les "maladies des pays chauds" (1830-1880).

Up to the 1860s, understanding of the disease consists first of a reflection on the ground and the situation of people on this place. This includes the writing of medical topographies and the development of a new science: medical geography. How could extra-European territories contribute to this knowledge and how this knowledge about tropics and their pathologies could contribute to the formation of an epidemiological reflection at a global level? This contribution tries to suggest the role of military doctors in this process, the importance of Algeria in this intellectual training and, finally, how this work on the "hot" countries contributed to the structuring of a professional identity.

Michel Dumas and Pierre-Marie Preux: promoting tropical neurology silently--the gist of their contributions.

This article presents the contribution by two senior French Neurologists over the past three decades in building, developing and promoting 'tropical neurology' in a number of neglected countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It talks about the 'human, dedicational and contributive value' of these two experts who do not come from an English-speaking world. It highlights meaningful changes that have been achieved in different tropical countries as a result of their direct contribution. This overview may likely be a cause for learning and motivation to others to really work in and for tropical countries, where a large proportion of global health burden is to be found.