Oswaldo Cruz father-in-law, a wealthy Portuguese merchant. Cruz found the seaport of Santos ravaged by an epidemic of bubonic plague that threatened to reach Rio de Janeiro and engaged himself immediately in the combat of this disease. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro authorized the construction of a plant for manufacturing the serum against the disease which had been developed at the Pasteur Institute by Alexandre Yersin and coworkers. He asked the institution for a scientist who could bring to Brazil this know-how. The Pasteur Institute responded that such a person was already available in Brazil: Dr. Oswaldo Cruz. On May 25,
Oswaldo Cruz construction of the Madeira-Mamoré railroad, which was interrupted due to the great number of deaths from malaria and yellow fever among the workers. In 1913, Cruz was elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1915, due to health problems, he resigned from the directorship of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute and moved to Petrópolis, a small city in the mountains near Rio. On August 18, 1916, he was elected mayor of that city and outlined an extensive urbanization project he would not see implemented. In the morning of February 11, 1917, at 44 years of age,