Frederico Simões Barbosa, one hundred years: a kaleidoscope of memories.

“Nobody is born an epidemiologist. They always have a past: first they were physicians, biologists, sociologists, anthropologists, mathematicians, etc. ... [The past] weights on epidemiologists’ training and guides the kind of work they do. Ecologists, naturalists, humanists, and anthropologists have a more comprehensive view of natural phenomena, while sociologists often look for macrosocial ‘explanations’ and mathematicians solve their problems at the highest levels of abstraction. In their own ways, they all serve epidemiology, currently one of the most comprehensive and fascinating fields generating knowledge in health” 1 (p. 2). The article quoted above, entitled Epidemiological Field Research, was taken from an information bulletin produced as part of the last major international cooperative project headed by Frederico Simões Barbosa, the Fieldlincs Program (“Field Links for Intervention in Control Studies”). Conducted in the 1990s, the project was financed through an agreement between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). Frederico’s words not only summarize his vision (expressed in various other documents) concerning epidemiology’s development as an essentially interdisciplinary field, but also demarcate in broad strokes the underlying perspectives of his intellectual and professional career. Throughout his career, which extended for nearly sixty years, “Frederico” (as he preferred to be called) often worked simultaneously in such diverse areas as zoology (entomology and medical malacology), microbiology, parasitology, tropical medicine, political and social sciences, public health, and epidemiology. In addition to his vast research output, including hundreds of scientific articles, chapters, books, and technical reports, he was directly involved in founding and consolidating research and teaching centers in various regions of Brazil. Always alert to events in the most progressive political and social movements, Frederico was a scientist and thinker who also collaborated with various international agencies, like WHO, when this was still relatively rare for Brazilian researchers. I do not intend here to provide a biography for Frederico, which can be found in greater detail in various other articles 2,3. Still, some basic information may be relevant to the context. Frederico was born on July 27, 1916, in Recife, Pernambuco State, where he graduated in medicine in 1938. He then specialized in parasitology and mycology at the University of São Paulo (1939) under the guidance of professors Samuel B. Pessôa and Floriano de Almeida and completed his PhD in medicine at the University of Recife (1942). A striking fact in his academic training was his experience in the United States, where he obtained his Master’s in Public Health (MPH) from Johns Hopkins University (1946). Graduate training was still extremely rare for Brazilian scientists, especially abroad. The first Master’s courses in public health in Brazil only appeared decades later. Beyond the purely academic dimension, his experience was crucial to the theoretical and methodological orientation that Frederico lent to the field of epidemiology in Brazil, with schistosomiasis as his main focus. As an administrator, he headed laboratories and schools in various Brazilian institutions, including the Aggeu Magalhães Research Center (as the first director), the School of Health Sciences at the University of Brasília (1975-1976), and the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health (ENSP) (1985-1990). He also chaired various representative health associations such as the Brazilian Association of Medical Education (ABEM), the Brazilian Frederico Simões Barbosa, one hundred years: a kaleidoscope of memories