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A n a i s d o I HM T
Paulo Gouveia de Almeida and Maria Teresa Novo
(GHTM-IHMT, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa), dis-
cussed the insect and other arthropod collections de-
posited in the “Entomoteca Henrique Ribeiro and He-
lena Ramos”, or
Entomoteca
of the IHMT in their paper
‘The Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine insect
collections: from tropical medicine to (re)emerging
vector-borne diseases in global health’. The collection
totals about 190,000 identified specimens, preserved,
filed and archived, constituting a scientific, but also
historical, didactic and biodiversity repository. Vector
species of infectious and parasitic agents of numerous
tropical diseases, and others re-emerging at present,
are represented here. These specimens originate from
a variety of zoogeographic regions and are closely as-
sociated with the activity and mission of the IHMT
since its foundation in 1902. Its invaluable historical
core results from Scientific Missions to Angola, Cape
Verde, S. Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau, Mozam-
bique,Timor, Macao and Portugal, undertaken by sev-
eral generations of Portuguese scientists since the be-
ginning of the 20th century. The latter include França,
Figueiredo, Kopke, Sant’Anna, Gardette Correia, Fraga
de Azevedo, Gândara, Cambournac, Barros Machado,
Pinhão and Ribeiro.These collections illustrate the his-
tory not only of Tropical Medicine but also of Medical
Entomology. The collection is composed of specimens
of sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae), tsetse flies (Dip-
tera: Glossinidae), mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae),
fleas (Siphonaptera) and ticks (Acari: Ixodida). Among
them, there are type specimens of 52 new species of
medical importance described by Medical Entomology
staff at the IHMT, recognised in international databases
of biodiversity.
The paper ‘InvisibleWomen: a new perspective of the
medical networks in the Institute of Tropical Medicine
(1953-1966)’, João Lourenço Monteiro (CIUHCT,
FCT-UNL), is a result of the author’s PhD project on
‘Medical Knowledge Network: the Institute of Tropi-
cal Medicine, among institutions, actors, diseases and
pathogens (1935-1966)’, funded by the FCT. It focuses
on the research developed by female medical doctors
of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, from the first
published scientific paper in 1953 to 1966, when the
Institute changed its designation to Escola Nacional de
Saúde Pública e MedicinaTropical (ENSPMT). The re-
search analysed available bibliographic sources, i.e. the
research papers published in “Anais do Instituto de Me-
dicinaTropical”, the scientific journal of the institution,
as well as other scientific publications. Social Network
Analysis and Digital Humanities methodology were ap-
plied to visualize the networks created by scientists.
The results of this investigation show that 12 female re-
searchers published 22 scientific papers in the journal
of the institution, some of them as first authors. The
focus of their scientific studies varied from subjects like
cell biology and nutrition to parasitic infections, in the
metropolis and Portugal’s colonies. Most of these scien-
tific papers were co-authored by João Fraga deAzevedo
and Guilherme Jorge Janz, medical staff pertaining to
the same institution.This paper is meant to contribute
not only to a better understanding of medical networks
created in the institution, but it also gives visibility to a
group of researchers who are rarely mentioned in the
historiography of Tropical Medicine.
3.3.
Health systems, Endemic diseases
and Control Strategies
In the third session, Mónica Saavedra (CRIA- ISCTE-
UNL) discussed ‘Malaria control and tropical medicine
in former Portuguese India’, a neglected issue in the
study of public health and tropical medicine in this for-
mer Portuguese territory. She focused on the extent to
which tropical medicine was practiced in Portuguese
India and contributed to the combat against malaria in
Goa during the interwar period and after the Second
World War. The paper examines the crucial impor-
tance of tropical medicine as a medical specialty in a
malaria endemic area, and how epidemiological data
were used for the planning and implementation of
a malaria control strategy in Goa. The paper engages
with the intersections between criteria established by
international standards, and local choices based on the
available resources and epidemiological conditions, as
well as guidelines used by Portuguese tropical medical
experts.These interactions will be examined by taking
a closer look at the role and interests of Goan medical
doctors involved in malaria control programmes and
the resurgence of scientific medical missions to Portu-
guese India from the late 1940s onwards.
João Dinis de Sousa (Katholiek Universiteit Leuven,
GHTM-IHMT) and Anne-Mieke Vandamme (Katho-
lieke Universiteit Leuven/GHTM-IHMT) authored the
paper‘Sexually transmitted diseases and their treatment
in colonial Leopoldville (1920-1960)’ which focuses on
a longitudinal study of epidemiological data on STDs in
the former Belgian Congo. During the colonial period,
STDs took on epidemic proportions in African cities.
Since its first application in 1911,
Neoarsenobenzol
pro-
vided the first effective treatment of syphilis, only to be
discontinued during the following decades.Treatments
for chancroid, gonorrhoea and chlamydia were not ef-
fective until the late 1930s, when sulfonamides became
available. Once anti-biotics arrived in the late 1940s,
the treatment of bacterial STDs improved significantly.
Better therapies, better coverage of urban populations