Episode 60 - Plague and Microbiology in Brazil with Matheus Duarte

Matheus Duarte (University of St. Andrews) comes on the podcast to talk to Merle and Lee about his work on turn of the 20th century plague in Brazil and its impact on creating the field of microbiology. After a brief introduction to disease history in Brazil at the time, Matheus discusses the impact and immediate non-medical responses to the plague outbreak in Brazil and their implications for global events. He then discusses the use of pharmaceutical responses – vaccines and serums – in Brazil and their subsequent use in other places around the world, particularly India. At the end, Matheus discusses the key role these responses in Brazil, and their use around the world, played in the rise of microbiology in Europe and globally to this day.