Carlos Chagas - Later Life

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.

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), but he never received the award. Chagas' main foe was Dr. Júlio Afrânio Peixoto, the leader of eugenics in Brazil, 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 Nobel Prize in medicine in 1921, when Carlos Chagas was the only real candidate for the prize.

He did, however, persuade Argentine physician Dr. Salvador Mazza to research the epidemic, leading to the latter's confirmation of the existence of trypanosoma cruzi in Argentina in 1927, and eventually to government action. Chagas died in Rio de Janeiro from an acute heart infarction in 1934, 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 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.