Henrique da Rocha Lima

Henrique da Rocha Lima was a renowned Brazilian physician of Italian background, university professor, scientist and pathologist and infectologist. He is remembered as the discoverer of Rickettsia prowazekii, the pathogen of epidemic typhus. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1879. He graduated in medicine from the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro in 1905. He was one of the founders of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, where he worked with other famous Brazilian researchers, such as Oswaldo Cruz, Adolfo Lutz and Carlos Chagas in the areas of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases. Rocha Lima developed an international career in medical research, working with pathologist Hermann Dürck at the University of Munich, and from 1909, as director of the department of pathology at the Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg. There, he described Rickettsia prowazekii, the causative agent of typhus, and named it after his friend and colleague Stanislaus von Prowazek, who died of the disease. He also worked on the development of vaccines and serums for various infectious diseases, such as yellow fever, plague and cholera. He returned to Brazil in 1926 and became a professor and researcher at the University of São Paulo and the Butantan Institute. He was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Medicine and published over 150 scientific papers. He received many awards and honors for his contributions to medicine and science, such as the Order of Merit Military and the Order of Merit Aeronautical. He died of heart failure in São Paulo, Brazil, at the age of 76.