Chagas' Disease and Chagas' Syndromes: The Pathology of American Trypanosomiasis

Publisher Summary

Chagas' disease-like all really great and important discoveries-has its own and very peculiar history, called by Magalhães , a “tragicomedy, which embittered and destroyed the life of one of our greatest compatriots”. In this history it is useful to distinguish the following six periods. Chagas in 1908 discovered in the intestine of the blood-sucking triatomas that were common in the primitive huts of the Brazilian hinterland, an unknown trypanosome, which was named by “Schizotrypanum cruzi.” The presence of this parasite in bugs suggested to him the possible existence of an infectious disease in animals and man. Soon afterwards Chagas also found the parasites in the blood of domestic animals (dogs and cats) and in the blood of a sick child with a high temperature. The discovery of American trypanosomiasis by Carlos Chagas represents one of the most fascinating events in the history of medicine. It is almost incredible that such severe pathological manifestations, which represent the “causa mortis” of one third of our autopsy material, would have been overlooked or unknown before Chagas' unique discovery. American trypanosomiasis shows a very peculiar pathology of homeostasis of the human organism, and represents even today a new realm in pathology, which becomes understandable through Cannon's law of denervation.