Carlos Juan Finlay

(Carlos Juan Finlay y Barrés). Born Dec. 3, 1833, in Puerto Principe, now Camagüey; died Aug. 20, 1915, in Havana. Cuban physician and health services organizer. Member of the Academy of Medical and Natural Sciences in Havana.

Finlay studied in France and Germany. In 1855 he graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia (USA) and that same year began working in Cuba. He was the first director of the public health service of Cuba (1902–09) and was one of the authors of Cuba’s first health code.

Finlay’s primary work was in research on yellow fever. In 1881 he proved that the carrier of the disease was a mosquito, Aëdes aegypti, and between 1893 and 1898 developed methods for combating the disease, including the protection of patients from mosquito bites by physical means, the elimination of the carriers’ breeding grounds, quarantine and evacuation of patients, a fumigation procedure, and improvement in hospital services. He also conducted research on other diseases, such as trichinosis, tuberculosis, malaria, and leprosy, and worked on questions of occupational health and sanitary statistics. In 1928 the Order of Finlay, awarded for outstanding work in the field of public health, was established in Cuba. The Institute of Tropical Medicine and the Historical Museum of Medical Science of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba have been named for Finlay; in 1961 his birthday was designated as the Day of Latin American Medicine by the government of Cuba.