Bactéria ou parasita? a controvérsia sobre a etiologia da doença do sono e a participação portuguesa, 1898-1904

Isabel Amaral

doi:10.1590/s0104-59702012005000004

Abstract

The etiology of sleeping sickness was unknown until the early twentieth century. This African disease soon became the main obstacle to European colonization. Sending scientific missions to the colonies to monitor its progression in loco thus became inevitable. Portugal sent the first research mission to Angola in 1901, and the Royal Society of London sponsored two British missions to study the disease in Entebbe (1902 and 1903). Their results led to a controversy in which Portugal was involved from 1898 to 1904, on the national and international circuits, analysed in this article.

Highlights

The etiology of sleeping sickness was unknown until the early twentieth century
Portugal sent the first research mission to Angola in 1901, and the Royal Society of London sponsored two British missions to study the disease in Entebbe (1902 and 1903)
With the founding of the first research and teaching centers specializing in tropical medicine in England, France, Germany, the United States and Portugal, tropical medicine became part of a transnational and interdisciplinary effort seeking to establish a new concept of disease (Worboys, 1976), of tropical diseases (Arnold, 1996)

Summary

Isabel Amaral

Assistant Professor of the Department of Applied Social Sciences/ Faculty of Sciences and Technology/Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The controversy over the etiology of sleeping sickness and the Portuguese participation, 1898-1904. Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro.

The microbiologists of the University of Coimbra

The British protagonists

Findings

Final considerations