Júlio Afrânio Peixoto (born December 17 1876 in

Lençóis Lençóis is a municipality in the state of Bahia in Brazil. The population is 11,499 (2020 est.) in an area of 1277 km2. The town has a well-preserved colonial atmosphere and is the starting point for treks into Chapada Diamantina. Transp ...

– January 12, 1947) was a Brazilian physician, writer, politician, historian, university president, and pioneering

eugenicist Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetics, genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human Phenotype, phenotypes by ...

. He held many public offices, including Brazilian congressional representative from Bahia in the federal ''Câmara de Deputados'' (federal congressman) (1924–1930), first the president of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, member of the Brazilian Cultural Center in the United States, president of the

Academia Brasileira de Letras The Academia Brasileira de Letras (ABL; English: ''Brazilian Academy of Letters'') is a Brazilian literature, literary non-profit society established at the end of the 19th century. The first president, Machado de Assis, declared its foundation ...

, and honorary doctorates from Coimbra University and the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...

, Portugal.

Biography

Born in

and raised in the backlands of Bahia, and schooled mostly at home, Afrânio Peixoto nevertheless graduated in medicine in Salvador, at Brazil's oldest medical school, in 1897, when he was only 21 years old. His work "Epilepsy and crime" attracted national and international attention. In 1902 he moved to the then-Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro, and became a public health inspector and the director of the local mental hospital (''Hospital Nacional de Alienados'', currently ''Hospital Juliano Moreira''). In 1907 he began lecturing at the ''Faculdade de Medicina''. He married Francisca de Faria, in 1912, and they had one child, a son, "Juquinha" ("Little Juca"), who was both mentally ill and of poor physical health and who died in 1942. The extent to which his son's disabilities may have influenced Afrânio's opinions as a eugenicist is still debated. Dr. Júlio Afrânio Peixoto died of

prostate The prostate is an male accessory gland, accessory gland of the male reproductive system and a muscle-driven mechanical switch between urination and ejaculation. It is found in all male mammals. It differs between species anatomically, chemica ...

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

on January 12, 1947, at 70 years of age.

Medicine

Afrânio Peixoto was a student and follower of Juliano Moreira, who initiated the scientific treatment of mental illness in Brazil and who invited his young protégé to Rio de Janeiro. Afrânio Peixoto was active in many areas: mental health, public health, criminology, and workers' health. He was important in establishing the foundations of workers' health when he took the chair of

forensic medicine Forensic medicine is a broad term used to describe a group of medical specialties which deal with the examination and diagnosis of individuals who have been injured by or who have died because of external or unnatural causes such as poisoning, assa ...

in both the medical and law schools in Rio de Janeiro in 1907. From his pioneering studies of occupational risks and job-related accidents and diseases, many publications were released, and legal safety nets were finally established for Brazilian workers. The only negative aspect of Afrânio Peixoto's highly successful career in medicine was his dispute with Brazilian parasitologist

Carlos Chagas Carlos Justiniano Ribeiro Chagas, or Carlos Chagas (; July 9, 1879 – November 8, 1934), was a Brazilian sanitary physician, scientist, and microbiologist who worked as a clinician and researcher. Most well known for the discovery of an eponym ...

over the cause of what later became known as

Chagas disease Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a tropical parasitic disease caused by ''Trypanosoma cruzi''. It is spread mostly by insects in the subfamily Triatominae, known as "kissing bugs". The symptoms change throughout the ...

. Afrânio Peixoto used his influence and prestige to dispute Carlos Chagas' clinical and parasitological findings and to transfer credit for the discovery of the trypanosome to Oswaldo Cruz, much to the disadvantage of everyone concerned. Chagas disease is a chronic and debilitating parasitosis caused by a trypanosome that is

vector Vector most often refers to: * Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction * Disease vector, an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematics a ...

ed by a biting bug in rural areas. A commission of the Brazilian National Academy of Medicine reviewed the evidence and decided completely in favor of Carlos Chagas and against Afrânio Peixoto, whose real motive may have been professional resentment when he was passed over for the directorship of the Brazilian Department of Public Health in preference for his rival.

Literature

It is in his writings that Afrânio Peixoto lives on, although most of his vast and varied literary output is currently out of print in Brazil and has apparently not been translated. The Library of Congress online catalo

shows no English language translations and few modern editions in Portuguese (see: Peixoto, Afrânio). Other Brazilian literary figures of the first half of the twentieth century have fared better in the public's memory. The humorous short story ''The Alienist'' by

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian people, Brazilian novelist, poet, playwr ...

, for example, is required reading for many Brazilian university entrance exams, but students do not know that this could almost be a satire on Afrânio Peixoto and the ''Hospital Nacional de Alienados'' that he directed. Afrânio Peixoto's principal works are: ''Rosa mística'', drama (1900); ''Lufada sinistra'', novel (1900); ''A esfinge'', novel (1911); '' Maria Bonita'', novel (1914); ''Minha terra e minha gente'', history (1915); ''Poeira da estrada'', literary criticism (1918); ''Trovas brasileiras'' (1919); '' José Bonifácio, o velho e o moço'', biography (1920); ''Fruta do mato'', novel (1920); ''Castro Alves, o poeta e o poema'' (1922); ''Bugrinha'', novel (1922); ''Dicionário dos Lusíadas'', linguistic dictionary (1924); '' Camões e o Brasil'', essays (1926); ''Arte poética'', essay (1925); ''As razões do coração'', novel (1925); ''Uma mulher como as outras'', novel (1928); ''História da literatura brasileira'' (1931); ''Panorama da literatura brasileira'' (1940); ''Pepitas'', essays (1942); ''Collected works'' (1942); ''Literary works'', ed. Jackson, 25 vols. (1944); ''Collected novels'' (1962). In addition to these, he published the commented works of other authors and numerous books on medicine, history, oratory, and literature. In 2017, the Brazilian copyright on Afrânio Peixoto's works expires; after this, they can be distributed freely on the internet.

Political views

In his political views, amply expressed while he was living, Júlio Afrânio claimed to be on the side of whatever government is in power. During his lifetime Brazil had five constitutions and ranged from democracy to dictatorship under Getúlio Vargas. Afrânio was a leftist, but not a fanatical leftist. He was interested in human genetics and eugenics. He held now-discredited views on race, but he was never antisemitic. Júlio Afrânio Peixoto was also an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

and a

freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

References

* Joaquim A. César Mota, Eliane M. Teixeira Lopes, Silvana M. L. Cóser; Organized by Micael M. Herschmann and Carlos Alberto Messeder Pereira. ''A Invenção do Brasil Moderno''. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco Publishing House.

External links