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This text analyzes the medical reports of doctor Murillo de Campos on an expedition by the Rondon Commission to the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in 1911. Originally published as a scientific article, the report begins by detailing the nosological profile in the places visited and the customs of the inhabitants. It then presents a detailed fieldwork report into the healing practices of the Bororo indigenous people in eastern Mato Grosso. An investigative approach is employed to describe the therapeutic methods used by the healers, particularly the extensive use of medicinal plants. The analysis demonstrates that Campos acted as an intermediary between medical knowledge and Bororo healing practices.

The corvette Vital de Oliveira was the first Brazilian Navy vessel to circumnavigate the world, from 1879 to 1881. One of the items that concerned its captain, Júlio de Noronha, in his trip report was the food supply, which was further reinforced in the medical report for the expedition written by the head surgeon, Galdino Magalhães. This concern was notable due to the high numbers of sailors who sickened and died during the trip, which according to both reports may have been caused by shortages of certain foods. This article discusses the relationship between food and health in the crew, as well as the relationship between this journey and the implementation of a new ration table that took effect in 1886.

During the nineteenth century, scientific expeditions travelled across Brazil investigating its fauna, flora and natural geological resources. By examining letters, reports, travelogues and illustrations of that time, it is possible to picture those expeditions, the naturalists themselves and the assistants who accompanied them, as well as something of society in nineteenth century Brazil. Our research focuses on the iconography of these travelers. These images help us to understand the way these traveling naturalists viewed nature, the men living in the interior and the indigenous peoples. By comparing eight images selected to illustrate the travelers' campsites we sought to observe their similarities and differences, revealing what they tell us about these travelers, their expeditions and the context in which they worked.

In the 1830s, the Royal Navy's ships were charged with precisely mapping out coastlines and ports, contacting local governments, and establishing trade and diplomatic relations. On returning to Britain, men like Robert FitzRoy, captain of the His Majesty's Ship (HMS) Beagle, would publish reports on their expeditions. They described and analyzed the societies they visited and compared them with Britain's actions around the globe. Brazil's tropical landscapes inspired their admiration, but its inhabitants were criticized for the inefficiency of their economic explorations and social backwardness. In this period, science accompanied the expansion of the British Empire, and accounts written by ships' captains legitimized the discourse about its practices of domination.

After the Challenger expedition (1872-1878), other nations started to show interest in oceanographic research and organizing their own expeditions. As of 1885, Prince Albert I of Monaco conducted oceanographic campaigns with the collaboration of some of the best marine biologists and physical oceanographers of the day, inventing new techniques and instruments for the oceanographic work. Prince Albert's scientific activity certainly helped kindle the interest of his friend, Dom Carlos I, king of Portugal, in the study of the oceans and marine life. Both shared the need to use photography to document their studies. This article analyzes the role of scientific photography in oceanography, especially in the expeditions organized by the Portuguese monarch.

John Casper Branner, a US geologist, had a long history of research in Brazil. The article analyzes his exploration of the geology of the coast of Northeast Brazil during the Branner-Agassiz (1899) and Stanford (1911) expeditions. In the findings from both voyages, Branner characterized the geomorphology of sedimentary basins, sandstone reefs, and coral reefs from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective, blending natural history's model of field research with the practices of modern biology and dynamic geology. He based his interpretation of the evolution of the geological formation on physical and chemical factors. Zoological studies identified the place of evolutionary variation and adaptations of isolated marine species as an auxiliary factor in natural selection.

The release of a report on the Oswaldo Cruz Institute's 1912 scientific voyage to North and Northeast Brazil, led by physicians Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna, debate that found its way to the pages of magazines of the letters and sciences. The report used the images of disease, geographic and cultural isolation, illiteracy, poverty, and a vocation for backwardness to portray the people living in interior Brazil. These images of the sertão were extensively criticized in the periodical A Informação Goiana, published by local doctors who refused to see the interior defined as 'sickly' and 'backwards'. The article analyzes the ways in which the Neiva-Penna report distinguished itself becoming a reference for intellectual controversies surrounding the national question in Brazil.

Analyze the report by Neiva and Penna, focusing on the contribution these authors made to the study of one of the endemic diseases encountered throughout their journey, which had been long known under the popular name of mal de engasgo (choking disease). They recorded their observations and detailed descriptions of the patients' symptoms and the association frequently encountered between mal de engasgo and another endemic disease, known as vexame or vexame do coração, characterized by bouts of palpitations. Neiva and Penna's epidemiological and clinical observations of mal de engasgo were crucial for all the researchers interested in the disease, especially its relationship with Chagas disease.

The article addresses the role played within the social imaginary of Brazil by the scientific voyages of physicians in the first half of the twentieth century. Two texts are analyzed: a report by Arthur Neiva and Belisário Penna published in Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz and another by Julio Paternostro, released in 1945 in Viagem ao Tocantins. The former contributed to singling out pathology as defining mark of national identity during the First Republic (1899-1930), a fact that had repercussions in the following decades, as apparent in Paternostro's book, which at the time of its publication was presented as an indictment of national problems. These portraits of Brazil highlight as attributes of the country not only disease but also the geographic and, primarily, cultural distance separating the coast from the sertão.

In 1922, a group of traveling naturalists reached the Brazilian coast, led by Jean Massart, a Belgium. The goal of this mission was to collect specimens for the Brussels herbarium, as recorded in images found in Une mission biologique belge au Brésil, 1922-1923.

During the XIX century, medicine went through several etiological postulate changes. Medical geography, the discipline closely tied to the interests of the European colonialist enterprise, was in charge of mapping the diseases occurring all over the world. The physicians in European navies were in charge of this important mission. The greatest enemy of European troops and residents, in the colonies and in the hot climate regions were known to be the so-called tropical diseases. In this article, we analyze the official travel account by Bourel-Roncière, a French physician responsible for healthcare on the ship La Circé, from 1868 to 1870. Special attention is given to his personal point of view concerning the diseases and respective treatments, which he studied in collaboration with Brazilian physicians.

This article emphasizes the important role Natural History has played in the production of medical knowledge from the end of the eighteenth century on. It also tries to clarify the strategic position Brazilian empire came to have in the nineteenth century in relation with etiologically and environmentally oriented research programs under the patronage of Medical Geography. The analysis of the French physician Alphonse Rendu's travel reports, from 1844 to 1845, leads to the recognition of a very specific period of that branch of European medical schools. Besides, the article provides the recognition of a second period of Medical Geography, that starts with the creation of th Archives de Médecine Navale in the 1860's.

In this short text we have aimed at stressing the Portuguese's pioneering in the fields of exotic pathology and of the snake poisoning. The accurate accounts and elaborate observations carried out by these builders of our cultural modernity anticipated, sometimes in decades, the descriptions or reports written by foreign authors. However, it is to these ones that the history of sciences recognizes, unduly and unfairly, priorities concerning the scientific discoveries. In this short account, in which some of the features of the scientific reality identified with the Portuguese Discoveries are systematized, the author pays homage to those who, either recognized or not, were the great doers of the contemporary culture and medical sciences.