Presented By: Department of History
War, Medicine, and Cultural Diplomacy
Transnational Scientific Relations between the United States and Brazil in the 1940s
Simone P. Kropf (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation/Fiocruz, Brazil)
Joel D. Howell (University of Michigan)
The United States and Brazil became close allies in World War II, not only in political, economic and military issues, but also in social and cultural ones, including science. Inter-American cultural diplomacy aimed to promote “hemispheric solidarity” against Nazism created channels through which scientific ideas and technologies could circulate. This talk is about one of those flows, between the University of Michigan Medical School and Brazilian physicians engaged in the study and treatment of heart disease. Frank Wilson was a pioneer in electrocardiography who trained many Latin Americans in his laboratory at the University of Michigan. In 1942, he made an extended wartime visit to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo sponsored by the US Department of State as part of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. The visit brought Wilson together with a group of physicians engaged in constructing the specialty of cardiology in Brazil. This initiative strengthened an academic network that would benefit both sides. While affiliation with the “Wilson school” advanced the cause of Brazilian cardiologists who sought to establish themselves as specialists, cooperation with those “neighbors from the South” and the identity as a scientific ambassador to Latin America benefited Wilson in his pursuit of international recognition for his ECG innovations. Wilson’s relationship to Brazilian cardiology illustrates close relations between science, technology and politics in a context of wartime cultural diplomacy, as well as the dynamics of the transnational circulation of scientific knowledge and practices.
This research was supported by the UM Brazil Initiative at the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS) (website: https://www.ii.umich.edu/lacs/brazil-initiative.html), the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz, Brazil).
Simone P. Kropf holds a PhD in History from the Universidade Federal Fluminense, in Brazil, and is a professor in the Graduate Program of the History of Sciences and Health in Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, in Rio de Janeiro. She is currently pursuing a postdoctoral research visit at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS). She has written about the history of biomedical sciences in Brazil in the 20th century. She is currently doing research on the cultural and educational exchanges between the University of Michigan and Latin American countries between 1938 and 1945, in the context of the Pan-Americanism movement and the Good Neighbor Policy.
Joel D. Howell, MD, PhD is a faculty member in the Department of History and Internal Medicine, and is the Victor C. Vaughan Professor of History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. His primary research interest is in the use of medical technology in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Joel D. Howell (University of Michigan)
The United States and Brazil became close allies in World War II, not only in political, economic and military issues, but also in social and cultural ones, including science. Inter-American cultural diplomacy aimed to promote “hemispheric solidarity” against Nazism created channels through which scientific ideas and technologies could circulate. This talk is about one of those flows, between the University of Michigan Medical School and Brazilian physicians engaged in the study and treatment of heart disease. Frank Wilson was a pioneer in electrocardiography who trained many Latin Americans in his laboratory at the University of Michigan. In 1942, he made an extended wartime visit to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo sponsored by the US Department of State as part of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. The visit brought Wilson together with a group of physicians engaged in constructing the specialty of cardiology in Brazil. This initiative strengthened an academic network that would benefit both sides. While affiliation with the “Wilson school” advanced the cause of Brazilian cardiologists who sought to establish themselves as specialists, cooperation with those “neighbors from the South” and the identity as a scientific ambassador to Latin America benefited Wilson in his pursuit of international recognition for his ECG innovations. Wilson’s relationship to Brazilian cardiology illustrates close relations between science, technology and politics in a context of wartime cultural diplomacy, as well as the dynamics of the transnational circulation of scientific knowledge and practices.
This research was supported by the UM Brazil Initiative at the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS) (website: https://www.ii.umich.edu/lacs/brazil-initiative.html), the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz, Brazil).
Simone P. Kropf holds a PhD in History from the Universidade Federal Fluminense, in Brazil, and is a professor in the Graduate Program of the History of Sciences and Health in Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, in Rio de Janeiro. She is currently pursuing a postdoctoral research visit at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS). She has written about the history of biomedical sciences in Brazil in the 20th century. She is currently doing research on the cultural and educational exchanges between the University of Michigan and Latin American countries between 1938 and 1945, in the context of the Pan-Americanism movement and the Good Neighbor Policy.
Joel D. Howell, MD, PhD is a faculty member in the Department of History and Internal Medicine, and is the Victor C. Vaughan Professor of History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. His primary research interest is in the use of medical technology in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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