Abstract

We have chosen to address the complexity of the links between the environment and health by examining a particular case: the history of a major public health problem in Latin America, Chagas disease, a parasitic disease transmitted to humans by vector bugs such as Triatoma, from wild natural reservoirs. The historical analysis of its discovery and the socio-economic conditions of its propagation, shows that a multiplicity of different environments are in operation. Moreover, the reduction of this abundance of cause-and-effect relationships to a single dominant factor is at the origin of the considerable difficulties encountered in the attempts to control the disease. The history of Chagas disease, like that of most Ecosystemecosystem-related diseases, demonstrates the illusion, or even the danger, of a simplified environmental approach in the management of these pathologies.