Carlos Chagas
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Loukinho
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{{for|the municipality in Minas Gerais|Carlos Chagas, Minas Gerais}}
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{{Infobox_Scientist
| name = Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas
| image = Carlos Chagas.jpg
| image_width =
| caption =
| birth_date = July 9, 1879
| birth_place = [[Oliveira, Minas Gerais|Oliveira]], [[Minas Gerais]], [[Brazil]]
| death_date = November 8, 1934
| death_place = [[Rio de Janeiro (city)|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''' ([[Pronunciation|pron]]. {{IPA2|kahlus ʃagɐs}}) (born [[July 9]], [[1879]], [[Oliveira, Minas Gerais|Oliveira]], [[Minas Gerais]], [[Brazil]]; died [[November 8]], [[1934]], [[Rio de Janeiro]]), was a [[Brazil]]ian [[physician]]. He discovered [[Chagas disease]], also called ''American trypanosomiasis'' in [[1909]], while working at the [[Instituto Oswaldo Cruz|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 (biology)|vector]] ([[Triatominae]]), [[host (biology)|host]], clinical manifestations and [[epidemiology]].
==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 (state)|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)|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.
==The discovery of Chagas disease==
In 1906, Chagas returned to Rio de Janeiro and joined the [[Instituto Oswaldo Cruz|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 outbreak among the workers of a new [[railroad]] to the city of [[Belém]] in the [[Amazon Rainforest|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 language|Portuguese]], so called because it sucked the [[blood]] at night by biting the faces of its victims). He discovered that the [[intestine]]s of these insects harbored [[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]] ''Trypanosoma cruzi'' <ref name=Chagas_1909>{{cite journal | author = Chagas C| title = Neue Trypanosomen | journal = Vorläufige Mitteilung. Arch. Schiff. Tropenhyg. | year = 1909a | volume = 13 | issue = | pages = 120–122 }}</ref> in honor of Oswaldo Cruz and later that year as ''Schizotrypanum cruzi'' <ref name=Chagas_1909b>{{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 }}</ref> and then once again as ''Trypanosoma cruzi'' <ref name=Redhead_2006>{{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}}</ref>.)
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 (medical)|acute]] form of the disease and performed more than 100 [[autopsy|autopsies]] on patients who exhibited the [[chronic (medicine)|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 in [[protozoology]] and [[tropical medicine]], on June 22, 1912. The contenders were luminaries such as [[Paul Ehrlich]] (1854-1915), [[Emile Roux]] (1853-1933), [[Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov|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.
Chagas was also the first to discover the parasitic fungal genus [[Pneumocystis pneumonia|''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 <ref name=Redhead_2006/>. ''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 in [[Guinea 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 (epidemiology)|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, 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 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 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 [[myocardial infarction|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 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]].
==Cited References==
{{reflist|1}}
==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.
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{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|Oliveira]], [[Minas Gerais]], [[Brazil]]
|DATE OF DEATH= November 8, 1934
|PLACE OF DEATH= [[Rio de Janeiro (city)|Rio de Janeiro]], [[Brazil]]
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT: Chagas, Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro}}
[[Category:Brazilian physicians]]
[[Category:Brazilian scientists]]
[[Category:Parasitologists]]
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1934 deaths]]
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