Medicine, climatology, and scientific networks

the participation of the Observatorio National in the Fourth Latin American Medical Congress and in the International Exihibition of Hygiene, Rio de Janeiro, 1909

Abstract

In the early twentieth century scientific debate about the healthiness or unhealthiness of a given Latin American country was still a controversial subject. Many physicians used in their work, data produced by scientific institutions that focused their research on climate and were responsible, among other functions, about the observation and measurement of temperature, rainfall and atmospheric oscillations. In this article I will analyze the participation of the National Observatory on the Fourth Latin American Medical Congress, held in 1909 in Rio de Janeiro represented by a memoir by its director Henry Morize and the display of some artifacts of the institution at the International Exhibition of Hygiene attached to Congress. It is intended to highlight the relationship between the Observatory and the demands of public health, a little-studied theme by historians of medical science. Despite the theoretical and methodological innovation experienced in recent years history of science´s perspectives are still dominated by studies marked by the boundaries established by scientific disciplines. The article seeks to question these perspectives by drawing attention to the need for comprehensive studies on the relationship between institutions that despite their different missions and profiles became networks of productive knowledge and scientific exchange.