Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas (born July 9, 1879, Oliveira, Minas Gerais, Brazil; died November 8, 1934, Rio de Janeiro), was a Brazilian physician. He discovered Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis in 1909, while working at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro. Chagas’ work is unique in the history of medicine, because he was the only researcher so far to describe completely a new infectious disease: its pathogen, vector (Triatominae), host, clinical manifestations and epidemiology. July 9 is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 175 days remaining. ... 1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... There are parishes that have the name Oliveira (Portuguese for olive tree; olive is azeitona or oliva in Portuguese, and olive oil is azeite): In Brazil Oliveira, Minas Gerais In Portugal Oliveira, a parish in the municipality of Amarante Oliveira, a parish in the municipality of Arcos de Valdevez Oliveira... Flag of Minas Gerais See other Brazilian States Capital Belo Horizonte Largest City Belo Horizonte Area 586,528. ... November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Location of Rio de Janeiro Coordinates: Country Brazil Region Southeast State Rio de Janeiro Mayor Cesar Maia (PFL) Area    - City 1,260 km² Population    - City (2005) 5,613,000 [1]  - Density 4,781/km²  - Metro 11,620,000 [2] Time zone UTC-3 (UTC-3) Website: www. ... The Doctor by Samuel Luke Fildes This article is about the term physician, one type of doctor; for other uses of the word doctor see Doctor. ... 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Instituto Oswaldo Cruz is a scientific institution for research and development in biomedical sciences located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... In medicine, infectious disease or communicable disease is disease caused by a biological agent such as by a virus, bacterium or parasite. ... A pathogen or infectious agent is a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its host. ... Traditionally in medicine, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but which spreads infection by conveying pathogens from one host to another. ... Binomial name Panstrongylus geniculatus Latreille, 1811 The members of Triatominae, a subfamily of Reduviidae, suborder Heteroptera, order Hemiptera, are also known as conenose bugs, assassin bugs, kissing bugs or triatomines. ... Epidemiology is the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. ...

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 and São João del Rei, he enrolled in the School of Mining Engineering at Ouro Preto, but changed to the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro in 1897, influenced by his uncle, who was a physician and owner of a hospital at that city. He graduated in 1902 and got his M.D. in the following year with a thesis on the hematology of malaria, working at the new medical research institute created by noted physician and, later, friend and colleague, Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1917). This article is about the location. ... Flag of São Paulo See other Brazilian States Capital São Paulo Largest City São Paulo Area 248,176. ... One of the many ornate churches and the most popular in the city, Igreja São Francisco de Assis. ... View of Ouro Preto Vila Rica do Ouro Preto, a city in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, is a former colonial mining town located in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains and has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of its outstanding Baroque architecture. ... A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ... Hematology is the branch of medicine that is concerned with blood and its disorders. ... Malaria is an infectious disease that is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions. ... Oswaldo Gonçalves Cruz (b. ...

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 using pyrethrum, an insecticide, to disinfect households, with surprising success. His published work on this method served as the basis of prevention 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. Seaport, a painting by Claude Lorrain, 1638 The Port of Wellington at night. ... For the Australian oil company, see Santos Limited; for the football team, see Santos Futebol Clube. ... Pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium, Family Asteraceae) is a perennial African plant with a daisy-like appearance and white, pink or red flowers. ... An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects in all developmental forms. ... This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ...

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 the São Francisco River, to combat a malaria oubreak among the workers of a new railroad to the city of Belém 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 large hematophagous insect of the genus Triatoma, a kind of "assassin bug" or "kissing" bug (barbeiro or "barber" in Portuguese, so called because it sucked the blood at night by biting the faces of its victims). He discovered that the intestines of these insects harbored a flagellate protozoa, a new species of the Trypanosoma genre, and was able to prove experimentally that it could be transmitted to marmoset monkeys which were bitten by the infected bug. Chagas named this new parasite Schizotrypanum cruzi, in honor of Oswaldo Cruz (later renamed to Trypanosoma cruzi.) Instituto Oswaldo Cruz is a scientific institution for research and development in biomedical sciences located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ... The São Francisco River is a river in Brazil with a length of 3,160 kilometres. ... This is the top-level page of WikiProject trains Rail tracks Rail transport refers to the land transport of passengers and goods along railways or railroads. ... This article is about the city in Brazil. ... River in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. ... Which feed on blood, like mosquitoes, ticks, ... Categories: | ... Orders See taxonomy Insects are invertebrates that are taxonomically referred to as the class Insecta. ... Triatoma is a genus of the subfamily Triatominae. ... Subfamilies Harpactorinae Peiratinae Tegeinae Triatominae etc. ... Human blood smear: a - erythrocytes; b - neutrophil; c - eosinophil; d - lymphocyte. ... In anatomy, the intestine is the portion of the alimentary canal extending from the stomach to the anus and, in humans and other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine (or colon). ... Flagellata from Ernst Haeckels Artforms of Nature, 1904 Parasitic excavate (Giardia lamblia) Green alga (Chlamydomonas) Flagellates are cells with one or more whip-like organelles called flagella. ... Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about: Protozoa Protozoa (in Greek proto = first and zoa = animals) are single-celled eukaryotes (organisms whose cells have nuclei) that commonly show characteristics usually associated with animals, most notably mobility and heterotrophy. ... Trypanosoma is a notable genus of trypanosomes, a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic protozoa. ... marmosts fuck all the time. ... A parasite is an organism that spends a significant portion of its life in or on the living tissue of a host organism and which causes harm to the host without immediately killing it. ...

Chagas suspected that the parasite could cause human disease, due to the prevalence of the insect vector in human households and its habit of biting people, so he took blood samples and, in April 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 the armadillo could be its natural reservoir. To complete his work on the pathology 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. A disease or medical condition is an abnormality of the body or mind that causes discomfort, dysfunction, distress, or death to the person afflicted or those in contact with the person. ... Orders See taxonomy Insects are invertebrates that are taxonomically referred to as the class Insecta. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Genera Dasypus Calyptophractus Chaetophractus Chlamyphorus Euphractus Zaedyus Cabassous Priodontes Tolypeutes Glyptodontidae (extinct) Armadillos are small placental mammals of the family Dasypodidae, known for having a bony armor shell. ... Natural reservoir or nidus, refers to the long-term host of the pathogen of an infectious disease. ... Pathology (from Greek pathos, feeling, pain, suffering; and logos, study of; see also -ology) is the study of the processes underlying disease and other forms of illness, harmful abnormality, or dysfunction. ... Look up acute in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, by Rembrandt, depicts an autopsy An autopsy, also known as a post-mortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a persons death and... In medicine, a chronic disease is a disease which has developed slowly or gradually. ...

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 in protozoology and tropical medicine, on June 22, 1912. The contenders were luminaries such as Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), Emile Roux (1853-1933), Ilya Mechnikov (1845-1916), Charles Laveran (1845-1922), Charles Nicolle (1866-1936) and Sir William Boog Leishman (1865-1926), several of them who had already received or would receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Chagas was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, in 1913 and 1921, but never received the award. Protozoology is the study of protists, i. ... Tropical medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with health problems that either occur uniquely in tropical and subtropical regions or are either more widespread in the tropics or more difficult to prevent or control. ... Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (March 14, 1854 – August 20, 1915) was a German scientist who won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. ... Emile Roux Pierre Paul Emile Roux (b. ... Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (Илья Ильич Мечников, also known as Eli Metchnikoff, May 16, 1845, Ukraine – July 16, 1916, Paris) was a Russian microbiologist best remembered for his pioneering research into the immune system. ... Laveran won a Nobel Prize in 1907 Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (June 18, 1845 - May 18, 1922) (sometimes spelled Alfons or Alfonse) was a French physician who, in 1880, discovered that the cause of malaria is a protozoan, the first time that protozoa were shown to be a cause of... Dr. Charles Jules Henry Nicolle (September 21, 1866 - February 28, 1936) was a bacteriologist who earned the 1928 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his identification of lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus. ... William Boog Leishman (November 6, 1865 - June 2, 1926) was a British pathologist. ... Nobel Prize medal. ...

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 a nursing school and was the founder of the concept of sanitary medicine, the first chair of tropical medicine and the graduate study of hygiene. Public Notice The Spanish Flu Pandemic (less misleadingly called the 1918 flu pandemic) was a pandemic in 1918 and 1919 caused by an unusually severe and deadly strain of the subtype H1N1 of the species Influenza A virus (which apparently killed via cytokine storm, explaining the severe nature and unusual... Sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), also known as sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs), are diseases that are commonly transmitted between partners through some form of sexual activity, most commonly vaginal intercourse, oral sex, or anal sex. ... Leprosy, also known as Hansens disease,[1] is an infectious disease caused by a DNA plasmid (transposon, or ultravirus, a small circle of DNA) carried in Hansens bacillus (the Mycobacterium leprae bacterium) which is thus the vector. ... Pediatrics (also spelled paediatrics) is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents (from newborn to age 16-21, depending on the country). ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for Tubercle Bacillus) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect the central nervous system, lymphatic system, circulatory system, genitourinary system, bones and joints. ... In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs. ... Nursing is a profession focused on assisting individuals, families and communities in attaining, re-attaining and maintaining optimal health and functioning. ... Hygiene is commonly understood as preventing infection through cleanliness. ...

Chagas' discovery was recognized at home and abroad as one of the most important achievements in parasitology. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (in 1913 and 1921). He never received the award, most probably due to the strong political stance against it by the Brazilian medical establishment at the time. Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. ... Nobel Prize medal. ...

He died in Rio from an acute heart infarction at only 55 years of age. A myocardial infarction occurs when an atherosclerotic plaque slowly builds up in the inner lining of a coronary artery and then suddenly ruptures, totally occluding the artery and preventing blood flow downstream. ...

One of his sons, Dr. Carlos Chagas Filho (1910-2000), became an eminent and internationally recognized scientist in the field of neurophysiology and president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Another son, Evandro Chagas (1905-1940), was also a physician and researcher in tropical medicine, who died accidentally at 35 years of age. His name is honoured by the important biomedical institution Instituto Evandro Chagas, in Belém, state of Pará. Carlos Chagas Filho (b. ... Neurophysiology is a part of physiology as a science, which is concerned with the study of the nervous system. ... The Pontifical Academy of Sciences was founded in 1936 under its current name by Pope Pius XI and is placed under the protection of the reigning Supreme Pontiff (the current Pope). ... Evandro Chagas (b. ... Tropical medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with health problems that either occur uniquely in tropical and subtropical regions or are either more widespread in the tropics or more difficult to prevent or control. ... This article is about the city in Brazil. ... Flag of Pará See other Brazilian States Capital Belém Largest City Belém Area 1. ...

Bibliography

• Chagas, C. Nova trypanozomíaze humana. Estudos sobre a morfologia e cíclo evolutivo do Schizotripanum cruzi n. gen. n. sp., agente etiològico de nova entidade mórbida do homem. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz, 1909, 1 (2): 159-218. (the original publication). (New human trypanosomiasis. Studies about the morphology and evolutive cycle of Schizotripanum cruzi, ethiological agent of a new morbid entity of man)

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. Full text

External links

• Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas. WhoNamedIt.
• Dr. Carlos Chagas
• Historical aspects of Chagas disease. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.