PAVLOVSKY E SORRE: TWO IMPORTANTS CONTRIBUTIONS TO MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY

Abstract

A historical analysis of the first geographic knowledge shows that the association between Geography and Medicine occurs since ancient times concernig the interface among subjects as health, environment and space. In the late nineteenth century, when Geography achieved status of an academic branch of science, its former approaches to Epidemiology leaded to Medical Geography studies, which consisted on a detailed description of diseases and its regional distribution. In the twentieth century, the conceptions of "Natural Focality of Transmissive Diseases", of parasitologist Evgeny Pavlovsky and “Patogenic Complex”, of the French geographer Maximillien Sorre. In this research, our main aim is to analyze the contributions that both scientists/thinkers brought to Medical Geography by recalling and correlating their formulations, emphasizing the instrumental importance of their concepts for analisys, as well as the connection between Geography and Epidemiology they established. Regarding also subjects related to a recently advancing area in Medical Geography: the studies on Environmental Health.