In order to understand the novelty, in theoretical and epistemelogical terms, of the emergence of tropical medicine, we analyse two models of research represented by the Pasteur de Ultramar Institute and the London School of Tropical Medicine. We seek to understand which arguments and concepts come into play in their discourse; in what way they construct their protocols for research; how these protocols, concepts and arguments are similar and different; indeed, whether it is possible to speak of something new, epistemologically speaking, or of the incommensurability of tropical medicine with the medicine inherited from Pasteur and the medical tradition concerned with disease in hot climates.
tropical medicine; bacteriology; natural history; acclimation; biogeography