Ecology, disease, and development in the Amazon in the 1950s: Harald Sioli and schistosomiasis in Fordlandia

Abstract

This article addresses research conducted by the German biologist Harald Sioli on schistosomiasis in Fordlandia (on the banks of the Tapajós River in Pará) in the early 1950s, when he worked at the Instituto Agronômico do Norte (IAN). This institute was created in 1939 as part of a series of initiatives to develop Brazilian regions considered "backwards" and "demographic voids" through agriculture, encouraging migration, infrastructure projects, and economic planning policies. Sioli approached schistosomiasis from an ecological perspective, correlating its incidence with environmental factors related to the distribution of host snails, human activities, and patterns of land occupation. In this way, we can associate his work with an ecological approach to infectious diseases, showing that it was simultaneous with the zenith of sanitary optimism and the ideological cycle of developmentalism.