Swiss-Brazilian physician, epidemiologist and zoologist known as a pioneer of tropical medicine. Adolfo Lutz (often cited as Adolpho in English texts) was the father of biologist and feminist Berta Lutz, whom he encouraged in her herpetological studies.
Adolfo Lutz was born in Rio de Janeiro to Swiss parents and travelled to Switzerland to complete his studies in medicine. After graduating from the University of Bern in 1879 he went on to visit cities across Europe where experimental medical techniques were flourishing.
Returning to Brazil in 1881 he took with him the knowledge he had gleaned and set up as a practitioner in Limeira, São Paulo. He longed to carry out research, however, and returned to Europe six years later to work on infectious diseases and tropical medicine in Hamburg, Germany. Success and reputation ensued and he was invited to take up directorship of a hospital in Hawaii, where he pursued research on leprosy. It was in Honolulu that he met the English nurse Amy Chesshyre Fowler, who he married. The couple spent the second half of 1892 in San Francisco, California, after which Lutz finally returned to his home country in 1892, where he was called upon by the government to direct the Bacteriological Institute in São Paulo. (The first director of the new institute, a Frenchman, had quickly resigned his post after an associate died of yellow fever.) The institute was later named in his honour, Instituto Adolfo Lutz.
Lutz worked to fight killer diseases including bubonic plague, yellow fever, cholera, typhoid, schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis, dedicating himself to finding their causes and mechanisms of transmission. To this end he travelled widely in Brazil, many times traversing the Sao Francisco and Parana rivers. He studied and collected medicinal plants, amassing a herbarium of 3,000 specimens, and pioneered research in medical entomology. In addition he was an enthusiastic herpetologist and described a number of new species of amphibian. This latter interest he passed on to his daughter, Berta, who continued his research in the 20th century.
Adolfo Lutz continued to work from 1908 until 1938 at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Instituto de Manguinhos) in Rio de Janeiro, directing the Section of Medical Zoology. Some of his most significant accomplishments include confirming the transmitting agent of yellow fever, Aëdes aegypti by replicating the experiments of Walter Reed, and spearheading public health campaigns to wipe out the disease.
Sources:
Anon., 1940, "Adolpho Lutz", Copeia, 4: 275-276
H. Aragão, 1956, "Adolpho Lutz (1855-1940)", Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 55(3): 447-487
M.M. Metcalf, 1926, "Adolpho Lutz: A Leader in South American Medicine and Biology", The Scientific Monthly, 22(2): 112-114
H.W. Stunkard, 1941, "Adolpho Lutz (1855-1940)", The Journal of Parasitology, 27(5): 469-471.
