- Carlos Chagas
Infobox_Scientist
name = Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas
image_width =
caption =
birth_date = July 9, 1879
birth_place = Oliveira,Minas Gerais ,Brazil
death_date = November 8, 1934
death_place = Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
residence = Brazil
citizenship = Brazilian
nationality = Brazilian
field = Physician
work_institution =Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
alma_mater = Medical School of Rio de Janeiro
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for =Chagas disease
author_abbreviation_bot =
author_abbreviation_zoo =
prizes =
religion =
footnotes =Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas, or Carlos Chagas (pron. IPA2|kahlus ʃagɐs) (
July 9 ,1879 , Oliveira,Minas Gerais ,Brazil –November 8 ,1934 ,Rio de Janeiro ), was aBrazil ianphysician . He discoveredChagas disease , also called "American trypanosomiasis" in 1909, while working at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro. Chagas’ work is unique in thehistory of medicine , because he was the only researcher so far to describe completely a newinfectious disease : itspathogen , vector (Triatominae ), host, clinical manifestations andepidemiology .Early life
Chagas was the son of José Justiniano das Chagas, a coffee farmer from Minas Gerais, and Mariana Cândida Chagas. After his secondary studies at
Itu , São Paulo andSão João del Rei , he enrolled in the School of Mining Engineering atOuro Preto , but changed to the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro in 1897, influenced by his uncle, who was a physician and owner of ahospital at that city. He graduated in 1902 and got his M.D. in the following year with a thesis on thehematology ofmalaria , working at the new medical research institute created by noted physician and, later, friend and colleague,Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1917).After a brief stint as a medical practitioner in the hinterlands, Chagas accepted a position in the
port authority of Santos, São Paulo, with the mission of fighting the malaria epidemic which was affecting its workers. There he introduced an innovation, which consisted in usingpyrethrum , aninsecticide , to disinfect households, with surprising success. His published work on this method served as the basis ofprevention of malaria all over the world and was adopted by a service of the Ministry of Health in Brazil which was established expressly for this purpose.The discovery of Chagas disease
In 1906, Chagas returned to Rio de Janeiro and joined the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, where he remained working for the rest of his life. In 1909, he was sent by the Institute to the small city of
Lassance , near theSão Francisco River , to combat a malaria outbreak among the workers of a newrailroad to the city ofBelém in the Amazon. He stayed there for the next two years and soon was able to observe the peculiar infestation of the rural houses with a largehematophagous insect of the genus "Triatoma ", a kind of "assassin bug " or "kissing" bug ("barbeiro" or "barber" in Portuguese, so called because it sucked theblood at night by biting the faces of its victims). He discovered that theintestine s of these insects harboredflagellate protozoa , a new species of the "Trypanosoma " genre, and was able to prove experimentally that it could be transmitted tomarmoset monkeys which were bitten by the infected bug. Chagas named this newparasite "Trypanosoma cruzi" cite journal | author = Chagas C| title = Neue Trypanosomen | journal = Vorläufige Mitteilung. Arch. Schiff. Tropenhyg. | year = 1909a | volume = 13 | issue = | pages = 120–122 ] in honor of Oswaldo Cruz and later that year as "Schizotrypanum cruzi" cite journal | author = Chagas C| title = Nova tripanozomiase humana: Estudos sobre a morfolojia e o ciclo evolutivo do Schizotrypanum cruzi n. gen., n. sp., ajente etiolojico de nova entidade morbida do homem | journal = Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz | year = 1909b | volume = 1 | issue =2 | pages = 159–218 (New human trypanosomiasis. Studies about the morphology and life-cycle of "Schizotripanum cruzi", etiological agent of a new morbid entity of man ] and then once again as "Trypanosoma cruzi" cite journal | author=Redhead SA, Cushion MT, Frenkel JK, Stringer JR | title="Pneumocystis" and "Trypanosoma cruzi": nomenclature and typifications | journal=J Eukaryot Microbiol | year=2006 | pages=2–11 | volume=53 | issue=1 | pmid=16441572 | doi=10.1111/j.1550-7408.2005.00072.x] .)Chagas suspected that the parasite could cause human
disease , due to the prevalence of theinsect vector in human households and its habit of biting people, so he took blood samples and, inApril 23 ,1909 , discovered for the first time the same "Trypanosoma" parasite in the blood of a three year-old girl. He also observed parasitic inclusions in the brain and myocardium which would explain some of the clinical manifestations in diseased people and closed the proposed life cycle of the parasite by suggesting that thearmadillo could be itsnatural reservoir . To complete his work on thepathology of the new disease, Chagas described 27 cases of the acute form of the disease and performed more than 100 autopsies on patients who exhibited the chronic form.His description of the new disease was to become a classic in medicine and brought him domestic and international distinction. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and received the prestigious
Schaudinn Prize for the best work inprotozoology andtropical medicine , on June 22, 1912. The contenders were luminaries such asPaul Ehrlich (1854-1915),Emile Roux (1853-1933), Ilya Mechnikov (1845-1916),Charles Laveran (1845-1922),Charles Nicolle (1866-1936) and SirWilliam Boog Leishman (1865-1926), several of them who had already received or would receive theNobel Prize for Medicine. Chagas was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, in 1913 and 1921, but never received the award.Chagas was also the first to discover the parasitic fungal genus "Pneumocystis" in the lungs of his Trypanosome-experimentally infected animals. At the time he did not recognize it as a separate organism and therefore he described his genus "Schizotrypanum" to accommodate both life-cycles that he illustrated beautifully. But, his discovery led others to further investigate and describe "Pneumocystis" as a distinct genus, which is now known to be a fungus. Chagas, followed the literature closely and quickly confirmed the distinction, whereupon he again adopted the name "Trypanosoma cruzi" that he had originally coined . "Pneumocystis" is now linked to another disease, PCP or
Pneumocystis pneumonia caused by one species ("P. jirovecii") but the original "Pneumocystis" species seen by Chagas inGuinea pig s has not yet been named as a separate species.Later life
After the death of his mentor in 1917, Chagas accepted Cruz's directorship of the Institute, a post he held until his death in 1934. From 1920 to 1924 he became the director of the Department of Health in Brazil. Chagas was very active in organizing special health care and prevention services and campaigns for the
Spanish flu epidemics,sexually transmitted diseases ,leprosy ,pediatrics ,tuberculosis and rural endemic diseases. He created anursing school and was the founder of the concept of sanitary medicine, the first chair of tropical medicine and the graduate study ofhygiene .Chagas' discovery was recognized at home and abroad as one of the most important achievements in
parasitology . He was twice nominated for theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (in 1913 and 1921), but he never received the award, most probably due to the strong political stance against it by the Brazilian medical establishment at the time. Chagas' main foe was Dr.Júlio Afrânio Peixoto , the leader ofeugenics inBrazil , who held many academical titles and was fluent in several foreign languages. Afrânio Peixoto campaigned against Carlos Chagas and his great work, and nobody was granted the Noble prize in medicine in 1921 when Carlos Chagas was the only real candidate for the prize.Chagas died in Rio de Janeiro from an acute heart infarction at only 55 years of age.
One of his sons, Dr.
Carlos Chagas Filho (1910-2000), became an eminent and internationally recognized scientist in the field ofneurophysiology and president of thePontifical Academy of Sciences . Another son,Evandro Chagas (1905-1940), was also a physician and researcher intropical medicine , who died accidentally at 35 years of age. His name is honoured by the important biomedical institutionInstituto Evandro Chagas , inBelém , state ofPará .Cited References
General References
* Lewinsohn R.: Carlos Chagas (1879-1934): the discovery of Trypanosoma cruzi and of American trypanosomiasis (foot-notes to the history of Chagas's disease)."Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg". 1979;73(5):513-23.
* Coutinho M, Freire O Jr, Dias JC. The noble enigma: Chagas' nominations for the Nobel prize. "Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz." 1999;94 Suppl 1:123-9. [http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02761999000700012&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Full text]External links
* [http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2757.html Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas] . WhoNamedIt.
* [http://www.uta.edu/chagas/html/histCarl.html Dr. Carlos Chagas]
* [http://www.dbbm.fiocruz.br/tropical/chagas/chapter.html Historical aspects of Chagas disease] . Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.Persondata
NAME= Chagas, Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Chagas, Carlos
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Brazilian physician
DATE OF BIRTH= July 9, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH= Oliveira,Minas Gerais ,Brazil
DATE OF DEATH= November 8, 1934
PLACE OF DEATH= Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.