Alberto Barton
Headline text
Alberto Barton Thompson was the third of nine brothers. His father was a english pharmaceutical and his mother Augusta Thompson traveled to Peru in 1870.
Alberto Barton did his primary studies in "Nuestra Señora de la O de Lima" and the high school on "Convictorio Peruano en Lima" school. He was admitted to San Marcos University and finished the medial school in 1900.
He received a grant for training in tropical diseases and bacteriology in the Tropical Medicine Institute of London and Edimburgo. He came back to Lima and was working like chieff physician of medicine and laboratory section in Guadalupe Hospital. That is the place where he began his first researchs.
The discovering of Bartonella was in 1905, when Barton was 33 years old of age. There was an outbreak between foreign workers that traveled to La Oroya to participate in the construction of Oroya-Lima railway. Most of the workers were transferred to Guadalupe Hospital and died victims of the rare disease characetrized by fever and severe anemia.
Fourteen patients with anemia and fever were studied by Barton. He discovered bacillus on their red blood cells. If the patients recovered of the acute phase, the bacillus changed of shape to cocoids and if the patients developed warts, the bacteria desaparied from the peripheric blood.
In october 5th 1905, during a scientific meeting, he announced hus discovering.
The first manuscript was published in 1909 in the journal "Crónica Médica". In 1913, Richard Strong of Harvard University arrived to Peru with the intention to study the tropical diseases in South America. Strong confirmed the discovering of Barton and called Bartonia to the bacteria in honor to Barton and posteriorly was called Bartonella bacilliformis.
Barton also studied Paragonimiasis, Leishmaniasis, and Brucellosis.
He was condecorated with "Orden del Sol de la Nación" in Peru for his research and was elected President of tha Nactional Academy of Medicine. Posteriorly was the first Doctor Honoris Causa of San Marcos University in 1925.
He died on Octubre 25th 1950, to the age of 80 years.
EXTERNAL LINKS
http://sisbib.unmsm.edu.pe/BVrevistas/folia/Vol8_N4_dic97/bartonella.htm