The article provides an overview of relations between doctors and researchers in Brazil and Germanic Europe from 1850 to 1918. The important role that institutions in Berlin and Vienna played as medical teaching models for Brazil and the prestige enjoyed then by German drugs find reflection in the careers of some of those who practiced medicine in areas where immigrants settled in Brazil. In 1908, at the peak of German influence over scientific life at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, Adolpho Lutz (1855-1940) was transferred from the Bacteriological Institute in São Paulo to this establishment in Rio de Janeiro; the scientist serves as a compass to explore scientific controversies, sanitary practices, and research institutes in the realm of bacteriology and tropical medicine. In the journal Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, scientific articles were released in Portuguese and German until World War I, when there was a shift in relationships of ascendency and communicative exchange between Brazilian and foreign scientists, as the United States secure the hegemonic position in the new network.