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Vital Brazil

2008-05-04T14:28:46Z

201.17.54.74:

:''For a place in [[Rio de Janeiro]], [[Brazil]], see [[Vital Brazil, Brazil]].''

[[Image:Busto2.jpg|thumb|right|Vital Brazil]]

'''Vital Brazil Mineiro da Campanha''', known as '''Vital Brazil''' ([[Pronunciation|pron]]. {{IPA2|vitaw bɾaziw}}), (b. [[April 28]], [[1865]] in [[Campanha]], [[Minas Gerais]], [[Brazil]], d. [[May 8]], [[1950]]) was a Brazilian [[physician]], biomedical [[scientist]] and [[immunology|immunologist]], internationally renowned for the discovery of the polyvalent [[antivenin|anti-ophidic serum]] used to treat bítes of [[Venom (poison)|venomous]] [[snake]]s of the ''[[Crotalus]]'', ''[[Bothrops]]'' and ''[[Elaps]]'' genera. He went on to be also the first to develop anti-scorpion and anti-spider serums. He was the founder of the [[Instituto Butantan|Butantan Institute]], a research center located in [[São Paulo (city)|São Paulo]], which was the first in the world dedicated exclusively to basic and applied [[toxinology]], the science of venomonous animals.

==Life==
[[Image:VitalBrazil1911.jpg|thumb|right|Vital Brazil in 1911.]]
Vital Brazil was born on April 28, 1865, in the little town of Campanha, in the states of Minas Gerais. His father gave him this curious name in homage to the country, the state and the city where he was born.

He graduated in [[Medicine]] in 1891, in [[Rio de Janeiro]], working as a technical assistant in the chair of [[Physiology]] in order to pay for his tuition and living expenses. After graduation, he started to work in [[public health]], initially as a sanitary inspector in São Paulo (1892 to 1895), where he acquired experience in the prevalent [[epidemic]] diseases of the time ([[smallpox]], [[typhoid fever]], [[yellow fever]] and [[cholera]]), and then as a private practitioner in the city of [[Botucatu]], from 1895 to 1896.

Vital Brazil was attracted by [[medical research]] in the growing fields of [[bacteriology]], [[virology]] and [[immunology]] at the end of the 19th century, which were being fueled by the great discoveries in Europe, by [[Louis Pasteur]], [[Robert Koch]], [[Paul Ehrlich]] and many others. He therefore returned to São Paulo in 1897 and accepted a position in the [[Instituto Bacteriológico de São Paulo]] (''Bacteriological Institute of São Paulo''), under direction of the great Brazilian [[Pathology|pathologist]] and [[Epidemiology|epidemiologist]] [[Adolfo Lutz]]. There, he worked on the preparation of sera against several diseases, particularly [[bubonic plague]], of which he fell gravely ill, fortunately surviving it.

Due to his outstanding work, the government of São Paulo founded a new Serum Therapy Institute in 1901 and gave its directorship to Vital Brazil. He also founded the Institute of Hygiene, Serum Therapy and Veterinary Medicine in the city of [[Niterói]], in 1919.

Vital Brazil carried out scientific travels to [[Europe]] in 1904 and 1914 and to 1925 to the [[United States]]. He continued working at the Butantan Institute for several decades until his retirement in 1919. He died on May 8, 1950, celebrated as one of the most important Brazilian scientists ever.

==Work==
The new São Paulo Institute was built in a section of the city named Butantan, at the time a far-away place, near the Pinheiros river, a swampy, sparsely inhabited area. Under Vital Brazil, it soon became an energetic and exemplary research center in vaccines and sera of all kinds, which were produced locally for the [[prophylaxis]] and treatment of [[tetanus]], [[diphtheria]], [[yellow fever]], [[smallpox]] and several [[zoonoses]] (diseases transmitted to humans by animals), such as the dreaded [[hydrophobia]]. The Institute came to be well known by his original nickname, the [[Butantan Institute]], and it still active today.

Vital Brazil was convinced since his early work at Butantan that envenomations (poisoning by accidents with venomous animals, such as [[snake]]s, [[scorpion]]s, [[spider]]s and [[batrachia]], then the cause of thousands of deaths in enormous rural Brazil, which teemed with such tropical beasts) could be fought with antisera, i.e., [[antibody|antibodies]] specifically produced for venoms which were [[proteins]] or long-chain [[peptides]]. A French immunologist, [[Albert Calmette]] (1863–1933) had demonstrated this for the first time in 1892, by developing a monovalent serum to treat bites by the Indian [[cobra]] (''Naja tripudians'').

Vital Brazil thus began a series of experimental investigations, and in [[1901]] he was able to prove that monovalent sera against the Asiatic species were ineffective against South American snakes, and proceeded to develop his first monovalent sera against the most common envenomations in Brazil, those produced by the ''Bothrops'', ''Crotalus'' and ''Elaps'' genera (represented respectively by the [[jararaca]] [[snake]], the [[rattlesnake]], and the [[coral snake]]). He found several clinical and biochemical similarities between bothropic and crotalic envonomations and so he was the first to achieve a polyvalent serum, i.e., simultaneously effective against both species, which represented a triumph over the stark [[death|mortality]] caused by these species in North, Central and South America. In a few decades, this mortality, which was higher than 25% to 20% of bitten people, fell to less than 2%.

Applying the same techniques (which involved gradual [[immunization]] of [[horse]]s and [[sheep]] by administering small doses of [[venom (poison)|venoms]], and then extracting, purifying and [[freeze-drying]] the antibody portion from the blood of injected animals), Vital Brazil and his coworkers were able to discover the first sera against two species of [[scorpion]]s' (1908) and [[spider]]s' (1925) venoms. In the USA, Vital Brazil's name made the headlines when he used his serum to save the life of a worker in the [[Bronx Zoo]] in [[New York]] who was bitten by a rattlesnake.

Most important of all, the Butantan Institute became a fertile school for breeding a new generation of Brazilian biochemists, physiologists and pathologists, such as [[José Moura Gonçalves]], [[Carlos Ribeiro Diniz]], [[Gastão Rosenfeld]], [[Wilson Teixeira Beraldo]] and [[Maurício Rocha e Silva]], who went on to found a growing number of schools, departments and research laboratories in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, giving a great impetus to the development of medical and biological research and teaching in Brazil in the second half of the [[20th century]].

According to [[Argentina|Argentinian]] [[Nobel Prize]] winner [[Bernardo Houssay]], who wrote a well-cited biography of Vital Brazil in 1966, his contributions went further than [[herpetology]]:

"Vital Brazil and his collaborators have studied several actions of the venoms, (such as) [[coagulant]], [[anticoagulant]], [[Hemolysis|hemolytic]], [[Agglutinin|agglutinant]], [[cytotoxic]], [[Proteolysis|proteolytic]], etc. (...) The {animal) poisons contain numerous [[enzyme]]s which have been isolated and studied with interest in all parts since they explain many of the [[symptoms]] and constitute interesting biochemical reagents, Vital Brazil studied also the [[ophiophagy|ophiophagous]] serpents, such as the [[mussurana]], the ophiophagous mammals, such as the [[skunk]]-like ''Conepatus chilensis'' and others, the ophiophagous birds and certain spiders. (...) His book, ''La défense contre l’ophidisme'' published in French in [[1914]], attained international repercussion with three editions."

==Related topic==
* [[Science and Technology in Brazil]]

==External links==
* [http://www.ivb.rj.gov.br/ Instituto Vital Brazil] Website.
* Houssay, B.A. [http://www2.prossiga.br/VitalBrazil/sobre/transcendence.htm Transcendence of Vital Brazil´s Work]. ''Memórias do Instituto Butantan'', São Paulo, v. 33, p. xiii-xvi, 1966.
* [http://www.butantan.gov.br/index2.htm Instituto Butantan] Website.
* [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1519249&dopt=Abstract Hawgood BJ. Pioneers of anti-venomous serotherapy: Dr Vital Brazil (1865-1950)]. ''Toxicon.'' 1992 May-Jun;30(5-6):573-9.
* [http://www2.prossiga.br/VitalBrazil/ Biblioteca Virtual Vital Brazil] (In Portuguese).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brazil, Vital}}
[[Category:1865 births]]
[[Category:1950 deaths]]
[[Category:Brazilian biologists]]
[[Category:Immunologists]]
[[Category:Brazilian physicians]]
[[Category:History of medicine]]
[[Category:Brazilian scientists]]

[[fr:Vital Brazil]]
[[pt:Vital Brazil]]

Vital Brazil

2008-05-04T14:28:06Z

201.17.54.74: /* External links */

:''For a place in [[Rio de Janeiro]], [[Brazil]], see [[Vital Brazil, Brazil]].''

[[Image:Busto2.jpg|thumb|right|Vital Brazil]]

'''Oswaldo Vital Brazil''' or '''Vital Brazil Mineiro da Campanha''', known as '''Vital Brazil''' ([[Pronunciation|pron]]. {{IPA2|vitaw bɾaziw}}), (b. [[April 28]], [[1865]] in [[Campanha]], [[Minas Gerais]], [[Brazil]], d. [[May 8]], [[1950]]) was a Brazilian [[physician]], biomedical [[scientist]] and [[immunology|immunologist]], internationally renowned for the discovery of the polyvalent [[antivenin|anti-ophidic serum]] used to treat bítes of [[Venom (poison)|venomous]] [[snake]]s of the ''[[Crotalus]]'', ''[[Bothrops]]'' and ''[[Elaps]]'' genera. He went on to be also the first to develop anti-scorpion and anti-spider serums. He was the founder of the [[Instituto Butantan|Butantan Institute]], a research center located in [[São Paulo (city)|São Paulo]], which was the first in the world dedicated exclusively to basic and applied [[toxinology]], the science of venomonous animals.

==Life==
[[Image:VitalBrazil1911.jpg|thumb|right|Vital Brazil in 1911.]]
Vital Brazil was born on April 28, 1865, in the little town of Campanha, in the states of Minas Gerais. His father gave him this curious name in homage to the country, the state and the city where he was born.

He graduated in [[Medicine]] in 1891, in [[Rio de Janeiro]], working as a technical assistant in the chair of [[Physiology]] in order to pay for his tuition and living expenses. After graduation, he started to work in [[public health]], initially as a sanitary inspector in São Paulo (1892 to 1895), where he acquired experience in the prevalent [[epidemic]] diseases of the time ([[smallpox]], [[typhoid fever]], [[yellow fever]] and [[cholera]]), and then as a private practitioner in the city of [[Botucatu]], from 1895 to 1896.

Vital Brazil was attracted by [[medical research]] in the growing fields of [[bacteriology]], [[virology]] and [[immunology]] at the end of the 19th century, which were being fueled by the great discoveries in Europe, by [[Louis Pasteur]], [[Robert Koch]], [[Paul Ehrlich]] and many others. He therefore returned to São Paulo in 1897 and accepted a position in the [[Instituto Bacteriológico de São Paulo]] (''Bacteriological Institute of São Paulo''), under direction of the great Brazilian [[Pathology|pathologist]] and [[Epidemiology|epidemiologist]] [[Adolfo Lutz]]. There, he worked on the preparation of sera against several diseases, particularly [[bubonic plague]], of which he fell gravely ill, fortunately surviving it.

Due to his outstanding work, the government of São Paulo founded a new Serum Therapy Institute in 1901 and gave its directorship to Vital Brazil. He also founded the Institute of Hygiene, Serum Therapy and Veterinary Medicine in the city of [[Niterói]], in 1919.

Vital Brazil carried out scientific travels to [[Europe]] in 1904 and 1914 and to 1925 to the [[United States]]. He continued working at the Butantan Institute for several decades until his retirement in 1919. He died on May 8, 1950, celebrated as one of the most important Brazilian scientists ever.

==Work==
The new São Paulo Institute was built in a section of the city named Butantan, at the time a far-away place, near the Pinheiros river, a swampy, sparsely inhabited area. Under Vital Brazil, it soon became an energetic and exemplary research center in vaccines and sera of all kinds, which were produced locally for the [[prophylaxis]] and treatment of [[tetanus]], [[diphtheria]], [[yellow fever]], [[smallpox]] and several [[zoonoses]] (diseases transmitted to humans by animals), such as the dreaded [[hydrophobia]]. The Institute came to be well known by his original nickname, the [[Butantan Institute]], and it still active today.

Vital Brazil was convinced since his early work at Butantan that envenomations (poisoning by accidents with venomous animals, such as [[snake]]s, [[scorpion]]s, [[spider]]s and [[batrachia]], then the cause of thousands of deaths in enormous rural Brazil, which teemed with such tropical beasts) could be fought with antisera, i.e., [[antibody|antibodies]] specifically produced for venoms which were [[proteins]] or long-chain [[peptides]]. A French immunologist, [[Albert Calmette]] (1863–1933) had demonstrated this for the first time in 1892, by developing a monovalent serum to treat bites by the Indian [[cobra]] (''Naja tripudians'').

Vital Brazil thus began a series of experimental investigations, and in [[1901]] he was able to prove that monovalent sera against the Asiatic species were ineffective against South American snakes, and proceeded to develop his first monovalent sera against the most common envenomations in Brazil, those produced by the ''Bothrops'', ''Crotalus'' and ''Elaps'' genera (represented respectively by the [[jararaca]] [[snake]], the [[rattlesnake]], and the [[coral snake]]). He found several clinical and biochemical similarities between bothropic and crotalic envonomations and so he was the first to achieve a polyvalent serum, i.e., simultaneously effective against both species, which represented a triumph over the stark [[death|mortality]] caused by these species in North, Central and South America. In a few decades, this mortality, which was higher than 25% to 20% of bitten people, fell to less than 2%.

Applying the same techniques (which involved gradual [[immunization]] of [[horse]]s and [[sheep]] by administering small doses of [[venom (poison)|venoms]], and then extracting, purifying and [[freeze-drying]] the antibody portion from the blood of injected animals), Vital Brazil and his coworkers were able to discover the first sera against two species of [[scorpion]]s' (1908) and [[spider]]s' (1925) venoms. In the USA, Vital Brazil's name made the headlines when he used his serum to save the life of a worker in the [[Bronx Zoo]] in [[New York]] who was bitten by a rattlesnake.

Most important of all, the Butantan Institute became a fertile school for breeding a new generation of Brazilian biochemists, physiologists and pathologists, such as [[José Moura Gonçalves]], [[Carlos Ribeiro Diniz]], [[Gastão Rosenfeld]], [[Wilson Teixeira Beraldo]] and [[Maurício Rocha e Silva]], who went on to found a growing number of schools, departments and research laboratories in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, giving a great impetus to the development of medical and biological research and teaching in Brazil in the second half of the [[20th century]].

According to [[Argentina|Argentinian]] [[Nobel Prize]] winner [[Bernardo Houssay]], who wrote a well-cited biography of Vital Brazil in 1966, his contributions went further than [[herpetology]]:

"Vital Brazil and his collaborators have studied several actions of the venoms, (such as) [[coagulant]], [[anticoagulant]], [[Hemolysis|hemolytic]], [[Agglutinin|agglutinant]], [[cytotoxic]], [[Proteolysis|proteolytic]], etc. (...) The {animal) poisons contain numerous [[enzyme]]s which have been isolated and studied with interest in all parts since they explain many of the [[symptoms]] and constitute interesting biochemical reagents, Vital Brazil studied also the [[ophiophagy|ophiophagous]] serpents, such as the [[mussurana]], the ophiophagous mammals, such as the [[skunk]]-like ''Conepatus chilensis'' and others, the ophiophagous birds and certain spiders. (...) His book, ''La défense contre l’ophidisme'' published in French in [[1914]], attained international repercussion with three editions."

==Related topic==
* [[Science and Technology in Brazil]]

==External links==
* [http://www.ivb.rj.gov.br/ Instituto Vital Brazil] Website.
* Houssay, B.A. [http://www2.prossiga.br/VitalBrazil/sobre/transcendence.htm Transcendence of Vital Brazil´s Work]. ''Memórias do Instituto Butantan'', São Paulo, v. 33, p. xiii-xvi, 1966.
* [http://www.butantan.gov.br/index2.htm Instituto Butantan] Website.
* [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1519249&dopt=Abstract Hawgood BJ. Pioneers of anti-venomous serotherapy: Dr Vital Brazil (1865-1950)]. ''Toxicon.'' 1992 May-Jun;30(5-6):573-9.
* [http://www2.prossiga.br/VitalBrazil/ Biblioteca Virtual Vital Brazil] (In Portuguese).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brazil, Vital}}
[[Category:1865 births]]
[[Category:1950 deaths]]
[[Category:Brazilian biologists]]
[[Category:Immunologists]]
[[Category:Brazilian physicians]]
[[Category:History of medicine]]
[[Category:Brazilian scientists]]

[[fr:Vital Brazil]]
[[pt:Vital Brazil]]