The Rockefeller Foundation's Medical Policy and Scientific Research in Latin America: The Case of Physiology

Abstract

Some studies have challenged the role played by philanthropic agencies in the organization of scientific work in underdeveloped societies. This paper is intended to add to this literature by studying the relationships developed between the Rockefeller Foundation and physiological research in four Latin American countries. The latter received sizeable grants during the 1940s and 1950s, not only as a result of the degree of excellence achieved in some laboratories of the region, but also as a means of spreading an academic model inspired by the élite medical schools of the United States. Rockefeller's philanthropy failed to modernize Latin American research structures, mainly because of the difficulty of transferring a model of scientific work from one culture to another. The paper shows how local resistance and conflict, rather than imitation and passivity, characterized this process of attempted transfer.