Science, health and development: Chagas disease in Brazil, 1943-1962

The present paper discusses the historical construction and legitimacy of Chagas disease as a distinct nosological entity and as a public health issue in Brazil. It focuses on the activities of a group of researchers from Oswaldo Cruz Institute who worked at the Centre for the Study and Prevention of Chagas disease, located in Bambuí, Minas Gerais. Led in the 1940s and 50s by Emmanuel Dias, disciple of Carlos Chagas, the group made important contributions to the clinical characterization of Chagas disease as a cardiac illness, established the fact that it was technically possible to control the disease by using residual insecticides, and engaged in intense political mobilization to have the disease included as part of the Health Ministry sanitation campaigns. My hypothesis is that the group's work was a determining factor in the overcoming of certain unresolved controversies that had surrounded the medical and social identity of the disease since the 1920s. I examine to what extent this process was directly linked both to post-war optimism over new possibilities of combating infectious diseases and to the national and international debate on the relation between health and economic and social development.