Medical Dictionary
Main Entry:
Cha·gas' disease Pronunciation:
'shäg-&s-(&z-) Function:
noun : a tropical American disease that is caused by a protozoan ofthe genus
Trypanosoma (
T. cruzi) transmitted by reduviid bugs especially of the genus
Triatoma, that has an acute form primarily affecting children and marked by chagoma, fever,edema, enlargement of the spleen, liver, and lymph nodes, and sometimes by myocarditis, and that also has a chronic form which may or may not follow an acute episode, progresses over time, and ismarked especially by cardiac and gastrointestinal complications (as myocarditis, ventricular hypertrophy, megacolon, or megaesophagus)
Chagas, Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano(1879–1934), Brazilian physician. Early in his career Chagas undertook a malaria control campaign that used pyrethrum to disinfect households and that proved to be the first successfulcampaign against malaria in the history of Brazil. During 1909–10 Chagas discovered and described the disease named after him. He discovered that it is caused by a species of trypanosometransmitted by bloodsucking reduviid bugs and that it is manifested by fever and edema and later by cardiac disturbances. He also described its epidemiology and some of its pathogenic hosts.
[shah-guh
s] 