Carlos Chagas

Hello! My name is Carlos Chagas. I was born on a big coffee farm in Brazil on July 9th, 1879. I loved exploring the fields and looking at all the plants and little creatures. I was always asking questions because I wanted to understand how everything worked. This curiosity made me want to become a doctor so I could help people and solve the puzzles of why they got sick.

When I grew up, I moved to the big city of Rio de Janeiro to go to medical school. There, I met a wonderful teacher named Oswaldo Cruz. He showed me how to use a microscope to see a secret, tiny world that is invisible to our eyes. After I graduated in 1903, I went to work with him at his famous laboratory, the Oswaldo Cruz Institute. We were like science detectives, working to figure out what caused different illnesses.

In 1909, I traveled to a small town called Lassance. Many people there were getting a mysterious sickness. I noticed that their homes had a little insect that people called the 'barber bug.' I had a hunch it might be part of the puzzle. I looked at one of the bugs under my microscope and discovered a tiny, swimming parasite inside it that no one had ever seen before! I named it Trypanosoma cruzi in honor of my teacher. A few days later, on April 14th, I found the very same parasite in the blood of a sick little girl named Berenice. I had solved it! I had discovered a new disease, the parasite that caused it, and the bug that carried it, all by myself. Today, it is called Chagas disease.

I spent the rest of my life working as a scientist, trying to protect people from the disease I discovered. I lived to be 55 years old. People remember me today as a doctor who looked closely at the world and used his curiosity to help others. My work continues to help scientists understand and fight sicknesses all over the world.