Afrânio Pompílio Gastos do Amaral

Afrânio Pompílio Gastos do Amaral was born on December 1st, 1894. Born in Belém do Pará, he directed the Butantã Institute shortly after its creation, in two phases: from 1919 to 1921 and from 1928 to 1938. He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1929 , as the central character of the report “Snakes”, due to his work in Butantã. Author of a precious book on the history of medicine: “SIPHILIS — disease and term — Through History”, a work awarded with the Arnaldo Vieira de Carvalho award, by Sociedade Paulista de História da Medicina in 1959. In the book, Afrânio do Amaral discusses the Latin poem “Syphilis Sive Morbus Gallicus”, possibly being the most important work on the history of the word syphilis ever published in Brazil.