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. . . Explores the history of the identification and disease classification of Chagas Disease. -Book News Inc In this finely crafted monograph, Francois Delaporte tackles one of the most complex diseases, American trypanosomiasis, known as Chagas Disease. Through his skillful dissection, he shows how complicated its discovery actually was, and offers wonderful insights into the international dimensions of Brazilian medical science in the early twentieth century. It is good to have this important work available in English. -W. F. Bynum, MD, PhD, FRCP, Professor Emeritus, University College London Delaporte's brilliant historical exploration of Chagas' disease covers the decisive period of 1909-1935. The strength of the study is the exhaustive discussion of the scientific literature, the subtle examination of fundamental shifts in conceptual frameworks, and the unrelenting interrogation of the crucial role that chance and error play in scientific research. What Delaporte has written is a comedie humaine of post-colonial science. -Carlo Caduff, King's College, London If Delaporte is correct then Chagas did not discover the causative organisms of American trypanosomiasis, did not work out the life cycle in the bug and did not discover the disease. So why is he so revered? Delaporte thinks that this is because Chagas was an expert at reformulating the past by rewriting history. -Parasitology Several points about the discovery of Chagas disease as described in the book are striking. -The Lancet Interestingly, Delaporte makes the very same criticism to the social studies of knowledge in which the aforementioned critics could be cast out. In his view those who establish causal linkages between the context of knowledge and scientific knowledge undertake an ahistorical task since they take for granted self-evident objects. According to Delaporte, these kinds of objects obscure the never foreordained historicity of what men do in order to be able to speak about things.--Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Project Muse) 'Chagas Disease' is a page-turner, where the reader is invited to wonder what will happen next. -International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

. . . Explores the history of the identification and disease classification of Chagas Disease. -Book News Inc In this finely crafted monograph, Francois Delaporte tackles one of the most complex diseases, American trypanosomiasis, known as Chagas Disease. Through his skillful dissection, he shows how complicated its discovery actually was, and offers wonderful insights into the international dimensions of Brazilian medical science in the early twentieth century. It is good to have this important work available in English. -W. F. Bynum, MD, PhD, FRCP, Professor Emeritus, University College London Delaporte's brilliant historical exploration of Chagas' disease covers the decisive period of 1909-1935. The strength of the study is the exhaustive discussion of the scientific literature, the subtle examination of fundamental shifts in conceptual frameworks, and the unrelenting interrogation of the crucial role that chance and error play in scientific research. What Delaporte has written is a comedie humaine of post-colonial science. -Carlo Caduff, King's College, London If Delaporte is correct then Chagas did not discover the causative organisms of American trypanosomiasis, did not work out the life cycle in the bug and did not discover the disease. So why is he so revered? Delaporte thinks that this is because Chagas was an expert at reformulating the past by rewriting history. -Parasitology Several points about the discovery of Chagas disease as described in the book are striking. -The Lancet Interestingly, Delaporte makes the very same criticism to the social studies of knowledge in which the aforementioned critics could be cast out. In his view those who establish causal linkages between the context of knowledge and scientific knowledge undertake an ahistorical task since they take for granted self-evident objects. According to Delaporte, these kinds of objects obscure the never foreordained historicity of what men do in

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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. Arthur Goldhammer is Senior Affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Todd Meyers is Associate Professor of Anthropology at New York University-Shanghai. He is the author of The Clinic and Elsewhere: Addiction, Adolescents, and the Afterlife of Therapy.

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