Afrânio Peixoto

The recorded working language is Portuguese. Employment is recorded with Rio de Janeiro State University and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Positions recorded include federal deputy of Bahia. Distinctions recorded are Grand Cross of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword.

• Name — Júlio Afrânio Peixoto • Pen Name — Afrânio Peixoto • Born — December 17, 1876 • Birthplace — Lençóis, Bahia, Brazil • Place of death — Rio de Janeiro • Occupation — Physician, writer, politician • Period — 1900–1947 • Genre — Novels, histories, biographies, linguistics • Movement — Symbolism • Notable Works — Rosa Mística • Awards — Academia Brazileira de Letras Academia Nacional de Medicina activists

Born in Lençóis 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 cancer in Rio de Janeiro on January 12, 1947, at 70 years of age.

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 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 over the cause of what later became known as Chagas disease. 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 vectored 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.

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 and a freemason.

Afrânio Peixoto is recorded as having received Grand Cross of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword.