Planos integrados, lagos artificiais e medicina tropical – o caso de Cahora Bassa nos anos 1960-1970

The integrated plans for harnessing hydro-graphic basins in Africa were comprehensive and aimed vast territorial areas, such as the one of Zambezi in Mozambique drawn by Portuguese authorities between 1956 and 1965. This plan comprised the construction of a large artificial lake – the Cahora Bassa dam's reservoir – which was then seen as having serious impact on physical and mental health of people affected by the project. This vision was evident in some documents such as the "Reorganization of the population living in the areas to be flood by the Cahora Bassa dam" produced by the Mission for the Development and Settlement of Zambezi Valley (1967-1970) and the "Bases for the Establishment of the General Programme by the Steering Committee of Scientific Research in the Area to be flood by the Cahora Bassa dam" prepared by Falcon et al. (1970). This article presents the analysis of those documents aiming at supporting the hypothesis that the work of those technicians and scientists paved the way for both the Environmental Medicine in Portugal and the current transverse-line of research of the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – "Emerging Diseases and Environmental Change".