The evolution of Brazilian studies on helminths and the Escola tropicalista bahiana (Bahia Tropical School) (1866-1892).

In the mid nineteenth century, laboratory research in embryology, development, ecology and pathogeny of helminths unexpectedly resulted in a change in the explication of the etiology of some human pathology that was traditionally attributed to environmental factors. The new postulates of the parasitology of helminths put in question the traditional explications as well as the recognized authorities in the fields of clinical medicine, hygiene, and of medical geography, affecting not only the traditional circles where the innovations were discussed, but also the institutions that controlled and validated medical knowledge. From the beginning of the decade of the 1860s, a group of Brazilian medical doctors, initially led by Otto Wucherer, took part in this scientific movement that had an important impact on the area of the domestic and international academic medicine. The causality of known diseases, such as intertropical hypoemia, hematochyluria and elephantiasis, became the focus of intense debate between 1866 and 1892. By the end of this period, the field of helminthic parasitology had available well-established methodological and conceptual criteria and the role of Ankylostomum duodenale and of Wuchereria bancrofti in the production of those diseases was fully accepted.