Tag Archives: Enrique Chaves-Carballo

Palo Seco: A leper colony in Panama

December 16, 2022

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Overland Park, Kansas   Fig 1. Indian 50 paisa stamp shows Armauer Hansen at work in his laboratory. Via Wikimedia. Copyright Post of India, licensed under the Government Open Data License. The history of leprosy goes back to antiquity and is replete with unscientific prejudices, including the belief that the disease was highly […]

Gonzalo R. Lafora: Spanish neuropsychologist and neuropathologist

October 12, 2022

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Overland, Kansas, United States   Portrait of Dr. Gonzalo R. Lafora (1886–1971). Reproduced with permission from Spanish Society of Neurology’s Museum and Historical Archives (MAH SEN). Gonzalo Rodríguez-Lafora (1886–1971) was a Spanish neurologist best known for his description of intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies (Lafora bodies) in myoclonic epilepsy. Lafora was born in Madrid on […]

Death, disease, and discrimination during the construction of the Panama Canal (1904–1914)

September 17, 2021

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Overland Park, Kansas, United States   Theodore Roosevelt. Portrait, c. 1904. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–1919) President Theodore Roosevelt envisioned an interoceanic canal as indispensable for American “dominance at the seas.”1 An isthmian canal would facilitate rapid deployment of U.S. Navy ships from Atlantic to Pacific Oceans, bypassing the arduous […]

The germ of laziness

April 7, 2021

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Overland Park, Kansas, United States   Charles Wardell Stiles (1867-1941). Parasitologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Portrait ca. 1912. Wikimedia Commons Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation was chartered on June 1909 “to promote the well-being and to advance the civilization of the peoples of the United States and its territories and possessions and of […]

Abram Belskie: sculptor of medical medallions

February 5, 2021

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States   Abram Belskie at work (circa 1948). Personal collection, Belskie Family. Via Wikimedia. Abram Belskie was born in London on March 27, 1907. He studied painting and sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art and received a scholarship to further his studies in Europe. In 1929 he moved […]

Origin of yellow fever

December 22, 2020

Enrique Chaves-Carballo  Kansas City, Kansas, United States   Henry R. Carter (1852-1925), Public Health Service Assistant Surgeon General and yellow fever epidemiologist. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) The origin of yellow fever has been a controversial subject since the disease appeared in the New World. William C. Gorgas, who was responsible […]

Carlos J. Finlay: the mosquito man

November 2, 2020

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States   Portrait Dr. Carlos J. Finlay. From Images History of Medicine (IHM), National Library of Medicine. Carlos Juan Finlay was born in Puerto Príncipe (now Camagüey), Cuba, on December 3, 1833. He was sent to Europe to complete his secondary education but was forced to return to Cuba […]