Oswaldo Cruz Institute

Oswaldo Cruz Institute, Brazilian medical research institute. The Oswaldo Cruz Institute was the foremost institution of tropical medicine in Brazil, if not Latin America, in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Beginning as the small Serum Therapy Institute situated in Manguinhos, outside Rio de Janeiro, it was transformed by Oswaldo Cruz, a young doctor trained in Brazil and Paris, who joined the institute in 1902 and who directed the federal campaign against epidemic disease in Rio between 1903 and 1909. During this time, Cruz used his political and financial resources to make the laboratory into a Pasteur Institute in Brazil. By 1908, Cruz had recruited and trained a first-rate Brazilian staff, many of whom, such as Carlos Chagas, Henrique da Rocha Lima, Artur Neiva, and Adolfo Lutz, made names for themselves in science. In 1908, the laboratory was renamed after Cruz. Several innovations, such as a formal course in microbiology, an adequate library, and a medical journal, the Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, gave an institutional framework to the program of research, which encompassed studies of malaria, Chagas' disease (discovered in 1909), helminthology, and parasitology. This framework ensured the survival of the institute after the death of its founder in 1917. Fiocruz, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, established in 1970, brought together the Oswaldo Cruz Institute with research centers such as the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health (ENSP), and the Fernandes Figueira Institute (IFF), among others.

See alsoChagas, Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano; Cruz, Oswaldo Gonçalves; Diseases; Medicine: The Modern Era.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nancy Stepan, Beginnings of Brazilian Science: Oswaldo Cruz, Medical Research, and Policy, 1890–1920 (1976).

Jaime L. Benchimol, ed., Manguinhos do sonho à vida: A ciência na Belle Époque (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Benchimol Jaime L., and Luiz Antonio Teixeira. Cobras, lagartos & outros bichos: Uma história comparada dos institutos Oswaldo Cruz e Butantan. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ, 1993.

Britto, Nara. Oswaldo Cruz: A construção de um mito na ciência brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 1995.

Dantes, Maria Amélia M. Espaços da ciência no Brasil: 1800–1930. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 2001.

Schall, Virgínia. Contos de fatos: Histórias de Manguinhos. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 2001.

Scliar, Moacyr. Oswaldo Cruz: Entre micróbios e barricadas. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará: Rio Arte, 1996.

                                        Nancy Leys Stepan