Debates político-científicos en torno a la vacuna Friedmann como iniciativa estatal para la “extinción de la tuberculosis”. Argentina, 1934

Abstract

The tuberculosis pandemic, which by the end of the 19th century had already spread worldwide, became a health problem in Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century. This endemic disease generated high lethality and mortality, associating its transmission with the living conditions of people, which forced the States to carry foward actions to fight against it. In this sense, within the initiatives generated by the Argentine State were the creation of large sanatoriums, including the “Santa María”, located in the Córdoba Province mountain range, and the legislative projects for the vaccination of the population. In this article we will refer to the discussions generated by the legislative proposal presented in 1934 by Deputy Augusto Bunge in relation to the Friedmann vaccine. The controversy took place in two different areas: on one hand, the Chamber of Deputies and, on the other, the Medical Circle of Córdoba, from where the members of the “Society of Tisiology of Córdoba” sought to impose their scientific legitimacy on the subject. The analysis, of a hermeneutic nature, was carried out based on state documentation, medical bibliography and newspapers.

Keywords

• politics
• medicine
• state
• vaccine
• Tuberculosis