Lewis W. Hackett and the early years of the International Health Board's Yellow Fever Program in Brazil, 1917-1924.

Lewis W. Hackett joined the staff of the International Health Board (IHB) in 1914. He was sent to Brazil in 1916, where his original responsibility was hookworm control, but he was gradually and inevitably drawn into combating other diseases. Hackett had a strong influence on public health in Brazil. In 1922 he instituted grass-roots (local) health units and programs. The next year, he negotiated with the federal government a cooperative yellow fever control program, which was described in the IHB's 1923 annual report as the "new and final campaign against yellow fever" in Brazil. Eleven offices were established in northern Brazil, where it was expected that yellow fever would quickly be eradicated. Just as the new program got underway Hackett was reassigned to Italy, where he remained until the beginning of World War II. Nonetheless, Hackett had done a classic job of developing the IHB program in Brazil, moving carefully but authoritatively from the initial focus on hookworm, to the development of a more comprehensive public health program, and then to the strategic thrust toward yellow fever.

Internationalism and nationalism: the Rockefeller Foundation, public health, and malaria in Italy, 1923-1951.

The Rockefeller Foundation's support of malaria control and public health in Italy over three decades, the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, was one of the foundation's most successful collaborations in its history. Nearly one-sixth of the funds the Rockefeller Foundation allocated for malaria programs was spent in Italy in those years. Outstanding research, a new and important institution, and decided improvements in public health were historically-significant results. The three most important episodes of this American-Italian relationship were the operations of the Stazione Sperimentale per la Lotta Antimalarica, the founding of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, and the campaign to eradicate mosquitoes in Sardinia. In each of these episodes there was a tension between the international aspects and national aspects of the partnership that to some degree limited its success.

Technology and malaria control, 1930-1960: the career of Rockefeller Foundation engineer Frederick W. Knipe.

Frederick W. Knipe was a malaria-control engineer with the Rockefeller Foundation, serving in Bulgaria, Albania, India, Mexico, Italy, and the United States. There were two phases to his career: from 1930 to 1943 he focused on drainage works that reduced or eliminated mosquito habitat, and from 1944 to 1960 he supervised DDT spraying programs. His appointments to the WHO Expert Committee on Insecticides, 1948-55, demonstrate that his contributions to malaria-control were highly regarded by his peers.

The dawn of DDT and its experimental use by the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico, 1943-1952.

The Rockefeller Foundation played an important early role in promoting the use of DDT for malaria control. During World War II the Foundation helped test DDT in the United States. North Africa and Italy. From 1945 to 1952 the Foundation carried out an experimental anti-malaria program in Mexico as part of its global mission to diffuse knowledge of how to control malaria-bearing mosquitoes with DDT.

Documentation of the history of malaria in Italy at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

The Rockefeller Archive Center holds approximately 50,000 pages of archival documents pertaining to the history of anti-malaria programs in Italy in the 20th century. Reports on the status of public health in Italy occur in the archives dating from 1915, but there was no sustained Rockefeller commitment to anti-malaria work in Italy until 1924. The article presents a brief description of the sources for the study of the history of malaria in Italy that are held at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

A success for science or technology? The Rockfeller Foundation's role in malaria eradication in Italy, 1924-1935.

The Rockefeller Foundation's malaria control work in Italy provides an important and instructive episode in the history of malariology. The pattern of the Rockefeller Foundation's early malaria control work, using its role in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s is an example of its strategy and methods. Although the history of malaria control usually is written with a focus on the scientific and laboratory achievements of scientists and physicians, the technology of malaria control also has been very important as in the case of Italy in the 1920s and 1930s.