Carlos Juan Finlay

Carlos Juan Finlay
Born	(1833-12-03)December 3, 1833 Camagüey, Captaincy General of Cuba
Died	August 19, 1915(1915-08-19) (aged 81) Havana, Cuba
Cause of death	Stroke
Education	Jefferson Medical College
Occupation	Physician.

Carlos Juan Finlay y Barrés (Camagüey, Cuba, December 3, 1833 – Havana, Cuba, August 19, 1915) was a Cuban physician and scientist.

Carlos Juan Finlay is recognized for having discovered and described the importance of the biological vector through the metaxenic theory of the transmission of diseases by biological agents, applying it to yellow fever transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

Biography

Early years and education

The son of an English physician residing in Cuba who had fought alongside Simón Bolívar, and of a Spanish mother, he was born in 1833 in the Province of Cuba, when Cuba was part of the Spanish Empire. He spent his childhood years both in Havana and on his father's coffee plantation in the area of Alquízar.

At the age of eleven, in 1844, he was sent to study in Le Havre, France, and he returned to Cuba two years later because he contracted an illness. He went back to France in 1848 to complete his education. After a period of two years in London, he entered the lycée of Rouen, where he remained until 1851, when he returned to Cuba, convalescing from an attack of typhoid fever. He would later change the order of his names to Carlos Juan.

Professional studies

The University of Havana refused to recognize his European academic degrees, so he enrolled at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There Finlay met John Kearsley Mitchell, who put forward to him the germ theory of disease. His son, Silas Weir Mitchell, was the one who supervised his studies. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1855.

He returned to Havana and began practicing ophthalmology in 1857, and he studied in Paris from 1860 to 1861. In October 1865 he married Adela Shine, a native of the island of Trinidad. They had three children: Charles, George and Frank.

Professional career

Finlay worked throughout the 1870s, finally attaining prominence in 1900. In 1881 he was the first to propose the theory of the mosquito as a transmitter, now known as a vector of disease, of the organism that causes yellow fever. A mosquito that bit a sick person could subsequently bite a healthy person and infect them. He presented his theory in 1881 at the International Sanitary Conference, where his proposal was not well received. A year later Finlay identified the mosquito of the genus Aedes as the organism transmitting yellow fever. His theory was followed by recommendations for controlling the mosquito population, and it was in this way that the spread of the disease could be controlled.

His hypothesis and his exhaustive tests were confirmed nearly 20 years later by the Walter Reed Commission of 1900. Finlay became head of the Cuban Health Office from 1902 to 1909. Dr. Reed received much credit in the history books for the "beating" he gave yellow fever, but Reed gave the credit to Dr. Finlay for the discovery of the vector of yellow fever. Dr. Reed frequently cited Finlay in his articles and gave him credit for the discovery in his correspondence.

In the words of General Leonard Wood, an American military physician and Governor of Cuba in 1900: "Dr. Finlay's confirmation is considered the greatest step forward made in medical science since Jenner's discovery of vaccination (against smallpox)."

This discovery helped William C. Gorgas reduce the incidence and prevalence of the mosquito-borne disease in Panama during the American campaign to build the Panama Canal. Before this, about 10% of the workforce died each year of malaria and yellow fever.

Yellow fever

Aedes aegypti mosquito, the epidemiological vector of yellow fever.

He studied yellow fever, and through his analyses and studies he came to the conclusion that the disease was transmitted by an intermediary agent. There is an anecdote which says that one night, while he was praying the rosary, a mosquito buzzing around him caught his attention. It was then that he decided to investigate them.

With the resources provided by the joint Spanish-American commission, he was able to identify the Aedes aegypti mosquito as the epidemiological vector of the disease. His studies led him to understand that it was the fertilized female of this species that transmitted yellow fever.

In February 1881 he went to Washington, D.C. as representative of the colonial government at the 5th session of the International Sanitary Conference, where he presented for the first time his theory of the transmission of yellow fever by an intermediary agent, the mosquito. His hypothesis was received coldly and with almost total skepticism. It was disseminated only by a modest medical journal in New Orleans through Dr. Rudolph Matas, a recent medical graduate, who had taken part in the joint Spanish-American commission as an interpreter, being the son of Spaniards.

Back in Cuba, in June 1881, he carried out experiments with volunteers and not only confirmed his hypothesis, but also discovered that an individual bitten once by an infected mosquito became immunized against future attacks of the disease. From this the serum against yellow fever was born. On August 14 of that same year he presented his research work before the Royal Academy of Physical and Natural Sciences of Havana. Thanks to his recommendations on mosquito control, the spread of the disease could be controlled.

International recognition

For more than 20 years Finlay's postulates were ignored. Only after the end of the Spanish–American War, when General Leonard Wood, Governor of Cuba, asked that Finlay's theory be tested, were his research works, as well as the experiments he had carried out, reviewed again.

Meanwhile, Dr. William Crawford Gorgas, a military physician who had tried without success to eradicate yellow fever in Santiago de Cuba, was appointed Chief Sanitary Officer in Havana in December 1898. At Finlay's initiative he created a Cuban Yellow Fever Commission which, following the instructions of the Cuban physician, fought the mosquito and isolated the sick. In just seven months the disease had disappeared from Cuba.

Isthmus and Canal of Panama

During the construction of the Panama Canal, diseases such as malaria and yellow fever caused high mortality among the workforce, with as many as 22,000 workers dying, 10% of the total. This high mortality rate contributed significantly to the failure of the French project, eventually driving the company commissioned for its construction into bankruptcy in 1889.

When the United States resumed construction, Dr. Gorgas was sent to sanitize the Isthmus of Panama so that the project could be completed; there he applied the same principles indicated by Dr. Finlay, which made it possible to successfully finish the monumental work of engineering.

A plaque on the Panama Canal itself recognizes the contribution of Dr. Carlos J. Finlay to the success of this work. On August 15, 1914, the first ship passed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the canal.

Doctors' Day

The Pan American Medical Confederation advised celebrating December 3 as Doctors' Day in several countries of the Americas, in memory of Dr. Finlay.

Microbiology Prize

Also in his honor, the government of Cuba created the "Carlos J. Finlay" Prize for Microbiology, which UNESCO awards every two years to researchers whose work on topics related to microbiology (immunology, molecular biology, genetics and others) has made an outstanding contribution to health. Its aim is to promote research and advances in microbiology.

Bust outside the "Carlos J. Finlay" Historical Museum of Medical Sciences of the Cuban Academy of Sciences in Havana.

Recognitions and honors

• A street in Cuba in the center of Old Havana; the Revolutionary Government founded in 1962 a museum of the history of Medicine in honor of Carlos J. Finlay.
• Parque Finlay (Honduras). A park dedicated to Dr. Finlay, located in the Barrio La Ronda of the city of Tegucigalpa (the Honduran capital).
• In the municipality of Marianao, now a suburb of the city of Havana, there is a syringe-shaped monument in honor of Dr. Finlay, usually referred to as "El Obelisco" (The Obelisk).
• He was commemorated on a Cuban stamp in 1981.
• A commemorative statue of Dr. Finlay is located facing the Bay of Panama City, near the place whose construction his help made possible.
• UNESCO awards the Prize for Microbiology bearing the name of Carlos J. Finlay, so called in his honor.
• Finlay was a member of the Royal Academy of Medical and Natural Sciences of Havana.
• He spoke French, German, Spanish and English quite fluently and could read Latin.
• His knowledge was very extensive, and he wrote articles on the varieties of leprosy, cholera, gravity and plant diseases.
• His main interest was yellow fever. His theory that there was an intermediate host responsible for the spread of the disease was treated with ridicule and indifference for years.
• A very humane person who frequently took on patients who could not afford medical care.
• As a result of his work, Finlay was eventually nominated on seven occasions for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, without having won that prize.
• He received the National Order of the Legion of Honor of France in 1908.

Death

Finlay died of a stroke, brought on by severe convulsions, at his home in Havana on August 20, 1915.

Legacy

In 1928, President Gerardo Machado established the Carlos J. Finlay National Order of Merit, rewarding contributions in health care and Medicine. It is the highest scientific award and decoration for a Citizen of the Cuban State. The order was withdrawn between 1959 and 1981.

On the wall of the Finlay Museum of Medical History in Havana, the inscription mentions that it was created by the Revolutionary Government as an eternal tribute to the man who contributed to the advancement of the sciences in Cuba. National Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Cuba. Havana, June 13, 1962.

Finlay was honored with a Google Doodle on December 3, 2013, on the 180th anniversary of his birth.

See also

• Infectious diseases
• Epidemiological vector

External links

• Carlos J. Finlay, vida y obra (website dedicated to the life and work of Carlos Juan Finlay) (in Spanish)
• Graduación de Carlos J. Finlay en el Jefferson Medical College de Filadelfia (article by José Antonio López Espinosa published in Infomed on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Finlay's graduation as a physician, on March 10, 1855) (in Spanish)
• Galería de imágenes de Carlos Juan Finlay. (image gallery of Carlos Juan Finlay) (in Spanish)
• Article on Parque Finlay in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) [1] (in Spanish)