Carlos Chagas - Early Life

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).

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.

Read more about this topic:  Carlos Chagas

Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:

    ... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.
    Hortense Odlum (1892–?)

    I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.
    Linda Grant (b. 1949)

    You have nothing more to fear. Not death nor decay. Here in this cup is my gift of life to you. I’m going to make you immortal. And I, too, shall drink and be immortal. We will not return to Egypt. Our world shall be wide, our time shall be without end. Has any man before offered a gift of eternal life to his bride?
    Griffin Jay, and Reginald LeBorg. Yousef Bey (John Carradine)