Oswaldo Cruz Oswaldo Cruz Oswaldo Gonçalves Cruz, better known as Oswaldo Cruz (; August 5, 1872 in São Luís do Paraitinga, São Paulo province, Brazil – February 11, 1917 in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro state), was a Brazilian physician, pioneer bacteriologist, epidemiologist and public health officer and the founder of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute. He occupied the fifth chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1912 until his death in 1917. Oswaldo Gonçalves Cruz was born on August 5, 1872 in São Luis do Paraitinga, a small city in São Paulo Province, to the physician Bento Gonçalvez Cruz and Amália Bulhões
Oswaldo Cruz following year, Cruz was appointed director general of Public Health, a position corresponding to today's Brazilian Minister of Health. Using the Federal Serum Therapy Institute as technical-scientific base, he embarked in quick succession of important sanitation campaigns. His first challenge was a series of yellow fever endemics, which had earned Rio de Janeiro the sinister reputation of 'Foreigners' Grave'. Between 1897 and 1906, 4,000 European immigrants had died there from the disease. Cruz pursued the new technique of eradicating mosquitoes and their breeding grounds, fumigating houses, and isolation of the ill. There was opposition to the campaign by many, including