De los litorales a las selvas: La construcción social del concepto de Fiebre Amarilla Selvática, 1881-1938

This book explores the process of constructing the concept of “jungle yellow fever” and the role that Colombian researchers played in its discovery. It is aimed at the general public and academics in the health and human sciences interested in history, and in the history of medicine, public health and the sciences, in particular, as well as public policy makers and decision makers in health. Drawing on historical epistemology, sociology of knowledge and political sociology, the book presents the conceptual and technical controversies in the field of yellow fever from the late 19th century in Colombia until the consolidation of the concept of sylvatic yellow fever in the 1930s. It explores how the Rockefeller Foundation ignored the analyses of national physicians who hypothesized the presence of rural yellow fever and, supported by its economic, political and scientific power, took priority in the discovery of the concept, showing the complexity of the actions of the sociopolitical actors involved, as well as the asymmetries of power that explain the control of symbolic capital on the part of North American researchers over the field of yellow fever, over peripheral actors.