The laboratory and field observations summarized in this paper on visceral leishmaniasis ecology in the State of Bahia, Brazil are based on the author's observations over the past 35 years in a number of state's foci, public health records and literature citations. The disease is endemic with epidemic outbreaks occurring every ten years and its geographical distribution is expanding rapidly in ...

Skeletal muscle biopsies harvested from asymptomatic patients affected with early stage colorectal cancer present centralized and central myonuclei, a feature that may be indicative of tumor associated muscle disorders, potentially leading to cachexia.. Biopsy of the rectus abdominis muscle were harvested during elective laparoscopic tumor resection, before any chemotherapeutic treatment., thus...

Trypanosoma cruzi, the ethiologic agent of Chagas disease (Chagas 1909), is transmitted through triatomine vectors during the meal on the invertebrate host. The parasite displays quite distinct morphological and functional forms, alternating between replicative stages (epimastigotes in the vector midgut and amastigotes in vertebrate cells) and infective, non-dividing forms (metacyclic trypomast...

Introduction and Objectives: Paracoccidioides brasiliensis is a thermodimorphic fungus and is the ethiologic agent of Paracoccidioidomicose. This dimorphic fungus undergoes a complex differentiation in vivo and is responsible for one of the most prevalent mycosis in Latin America. During in vitro growth, phase transitions are triggered when the incubation temperature is shifted from 26°C to 37°...

Robert Koch was an eminence on Tuberculosis and a german hero worldwide since he discovered and described the ethiologic cause of the white plague. Soon afterwards, he devoted his work to study the effect of inoculating M.tuberculosis bacilli (Mtb) to guinea pigs, either healthy or already infected. From his experiments, as reported by himself, he learnt the infection was able to develop protec...

Addison’s disease, named after the English physician who provided its full description in 1855, is the result of the destruction or impaired function of adrenocortical cells. Of the 11 cases described by Addison, 10 were likely subsequent to an infiltrative disease (the most common being the secondary localization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to the adrenal gland) and 1 was clinically idiopath...

Introduction: Brown syndrome is a rare ocular movement abnormality. This syndrome is characterized by an inability to elevate the affected eye in adduction. Most cases are sporadic but the occurrence in Monozygotic twins has suggested the possible autosomal dominant inheritance in Brown syndrome. Case presentation: A 4-year-old girl (one pair of dizygotic twins) was referred to our pediatric op...