Afrânio Peixoto

Afrânio Peixoto ( born December 17, 1876 in Lençóis, † January 12, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian physician, politician, literary critic and writer.

Peixoto received his doctorate in medicine in 1897 in Salvador da Bahia, with a thesis on "Epilepsy and crime ". From 1907 he taught forensic medicine at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. In 1910 he was elected to the Academia Brasileira de cadeira 7 Letras, was co-founder of the Academia Brasileira de Filologia whose cadeira 2 he occupied. From 1924 to 1930 he was a deputy of the State of Bahia in the Brazilian Parliament; after that he worked as a lecturer at the Instituto Superior de Educação of Rio de Janeiro. In 1935 he became rector of the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.

He was known for his rivalry with Carlos Chagas and represented, against him, the opinion that there is no tropical ( climate-related ) diseases per se; Rather, the social conditions were to blame for the spread of disease.