Foreword

We are facing a field of research in expansion. From the backdrop of Cultural History we can identify a series of themes, which are mixed with the specificities of the History of Science. From this fusion, we find the history of science and its cultural interfaces. In this number of Varia História, in the issue entitled History, Science, and Health: practices and knowledge, we present some of the research indicating the analytical possibilities in the area. The field Science and Culture in History, from the Graduate Program in History/UFMG, has two emphases: Social History of Science and History of Scientific ldeas. By establishing these two emphases in the structuring of the research, there is no intention to make them conform to the traditional dichotomy between an internai history of science and an externai history of science. lt is intended, through cultural mediation, to dissolve this dichotomy, changing the main point of the debate. Thus, the division of the studies between both complementary emphases reflects much more a methodological dimension than exactly an epistemological perspective. The research in the Social History of Science analyzes the various existing relations between science and society. The difficulties between the production of scientific knowledge and society in its historie context are the object of this analysis. These investigations reflect the social construction of science through biographies, practicies , institutions, procedures, discoveries, and ruptures. The research in the History of Scientific ldeas comprehends, from cultural relations, the formation of the concepts and ideas, which characterize the scientific theories in their various contexts. In this sense, we are not taking ideas and scientific concepts by themselves, but trying to understand how cultural determinants play an important role in the formation of these ideas and concepts and in the elaboration of scientific theories. The field of research : Science and Culture in History contains studies, which consider the formation and development of modern science, as well as, in particular, the emergence and development of the sciences in Brazil. The present issue defined the history of health as its object of analysis and presents in its 5 articles a widely diversified spectrum of the production in the area.