Synopsis and systematization of the mosquitoes of Brazil

Editors’ note

The contributions of Adolpho Lutz presented herein were included in the doctoral dissertation of Celestino Bourroul (1880-1958), “Mosquitoes of Brazil” [in Port.], defended at the Salvador School of Medicine and published in Bahia in 1904 by João Batista de Oliveira Costa’s Oficina Tipográfica. Compiled by Lutz and comprising eight parts, the “Synopsis and systematization of the mosquitoes of Brazil” [in Port.] is divided into non-sequentially numbered segments starting on page 33 of Bourroul’s dissertation,which appears as an attachment at the end of this volume. Adolpho Lutz served as advisor to Bourroul, and the Fundo Bertha Lutz (Division Diptera, file Culicidae) at Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional holds texts by Bourroul that were emended by the then-director of the Bacteriological Institute of São Paulo.

Although he received his medical degree in Bahia, Celestino,son of physician Paulo Bourroul, was born in São Paulo on 13 November 1880. In early 1899, he decided to study medicine in the capital city of Bahia rather than in Rio de Janeiro, since the latter town fell victim to yellow fever and smallpox epidemics nearly every year. It was surely his reading of a paper by Lutz –“Waldomosquitos und Waldmalaria” (Forest mosquitoes and forest malaria), published in 1903 in the CentralBlatt für Bakteriologie,Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten (v.33, n.4, p.282-92) –that prompted the talented medical student to venture into entomological research; during a trip to the Bahian island of Itaparica, he began collecting and raising mosquitoes that inhabited the water stored in bromeliads. His dissertation received the highest possible score and Celestino was awarded not only academic honors but also a trip to Europe. He first visited France, where the Bourrouls originally came from. According to Capuano (2003), the family patriarch, Antoine Joseph – who was from Antibes Juan-les-Pins on the coast of the province of Alpes-Maritimes – used to tell his children stories about Brazil and other distant lands. Etienne was the first to move to São Paulo, around 1830, where he established himself as a businessman; he then convinced his brothers Camilo and Celestino to come. Paulo married his cousin Sebastiana and produced a single heir, who in the early days of the twentieth century took his first steps down a successful career path in medicine. After specialization studies with the renowned neurologist Joseph Grasset (1849-1918), he spent time in Montpellier, serving as an assistant to bacteriologist Rolart. In Berlin, Celestino Bourroul did an internship at the Pathological Anatomy laboratory of Professor Johannes Orth (1847-1923). From there he traveled to Vienna, where he specialized in medical practice, radiology, and pathological anatomy.

He established his own practice upon returning to the state capital of São Paulo. In 1913, married to Maria da Conceição Monteiro de Barros, with whom he was to have eight children, he began working at the newly founded São Paulo School of Medicine as substitute professor of Physics and Natural History, a chair held by the French parasitologist émile Brumpt. The next year, Brumpt returned to France and Bourroul took over the chair in Parasitology.In 1928, when construction of the School’s current building commenced (with the technical and financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation), Bourroul began teaching Tropical and Infectious Diseases, a chair that he held until 1950. He divided his time between his private practice, the School of Medicine,and Santa Casa de Misericórdia Hospital, where he practiced medicine and held a number of administrative posts.

Sources: Yvonne Capuano, “Celestino Bourroul, um exemplo de vida.” Paper presented at the Eighth Brazilian Congress on the History of Medicine, on 13 Nov. 2003, Terreiro de Jesus School of Medicine, Salvador (BA).Available at www.hcanc.org.br/intro/apres2.html (accessed on 19 Oct.2005). Cristina Iori and Eliana Lopes Nassif, “Antonio Prudente: Turning Dreams into Reality,” Applied Cancer Research, 2005, v.25, n.2, p.93-104,available at www.appliedcr.com/journal/v25n2/part9.pdf. Leandra Rajczuk,“Casa de Arnaldo. De volta ao antigo esplendor,” available at www.usp.br/jorusp/arquivo/1998/jusp453/manchet/rep_res/boxesp.html (accessed on 3 Nov. 2005).