Description: In Chagas Disease: History of a Continent's Scourge, François Delaporte describes how the interaction of public health policy with medical knowledge and epistemological transformations in the period 1900-1935 can account for the discovery of a continental endemic. It also deconstructs the myths that surround a number of major medical discoveries in both Brazil and Argentina.
Brief description: François Delaporte is Professor Emeritus of the University of Picardia Jules Verne. Several of his books have been translated into English, including Disease and Civilization: The Cholera in Paris, 1832; The History of Yellow Fever; Anatomy of the Passions; and Nature's Second Kingdom. He also edited A Vital Rationalist: Selected Writings of Georges Canguilhem.
Review Quotes: Several points about the discovery of Chagas disease as described in the book are striking.-- "--The Lancet"