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:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“How many inner resources one needs to tolerate a life of leisure without fatigue”
—Natalie Clifford Barney (18761972)