Fantini B
Institut Louis Jeantet d'Histoire de la Médecine, Université de Genève, Suisse.
Parassitologia. 1999 Sep;41(1-3):39-47.
At the dawn of the 20th century, the change in the scientific, political and cultural attitudes towards malaria was the result of the discovery of the theoretical simplicity of the malaria transmission cycle and of the possibility to interrupt it, by avoiding the contacts between people and mosquitoes. The 'mosquito hypothesis', suggested already in the 1880s, had to be included into a coherent scientific theory, in which a fundamental part was played by the concept of specificity. The paper analyses the Italian contribution to this scientific change and the epistemological aspects of the debate between Ronald Ross and Battista Grassi about their respective role in the discovery of the human malaria transmission cycle. This debate has been often interpreted in sociological or psychological terms. However, behind the dispute there is a different definition of what is a scientific explanation in biological sciences and in particular in parasitology. This point is made clear by the analysis of four different theoretical problems implied in the discovery of the transmission cycle: the concept of specificity, the comparative method in parasitology, the specificity of the life-cycle of parasites and vectors, and the role of the analogical reasoning in science and medicine.
在20世纪初，科学、政治和文化界对疟疾态度的转变，是由于发现了疟疾传播周期理论上的简单性，以及通过避免人与蚊子接触来阻断该传播周期的可能性。19世纪80年代就已提出的“蚊子假说”，必须被纳入一个连贯的科学理论，其中特异性概念发挥了重要作用。本文分析了意大利对这一科学变革的贡献，以及罗纳德·罗斯和巴蒂斯塔·格拉西之间关于他们在发现人类疟疾传播周期中各自作用的争论的认识论方面。这场争论常常从社会学或心理学角度进行解读。然而，在这场争论背后，是对生物科学尤其是寄生虫学中科学解释的不同定义。通过分析发现传播周期所涉及的四个不同理论问题，可以清楚地说明这一点：特异性概念、寄生虫学中的比较方法、寄生虫和病媒生命周期的特异性，以及类比推理在科学和医学中的作用。
