Henrique da Rocha Lima

Henrique da Rocha Lima (24 November 1879 – 12 April 1956) was a Brazilian physician, pathologist and infectologist born in Rio de Janeiro. With his friend, Stanislaus von Prowazek, he described what would later be known as Rickettsia prowazekii, the pathogen of epidemic typhus. Rocha Lima named the organism after Prowazek and American bacteriologist Howard Taylor Ricketts (1871-1910).

Henrique da Rocha Lima received his M.D. degree from the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro in 1905. He was one of the founders of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, where he worked as a professor of pathology with other famous Brazilian researchers, such as Oswaldo Cruz himself, Adolfo Lutz and Carlos Chagas (the discoverer of Chagas disease) in the areas of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases. Rocha Lima developed an international career in medical research, working with pathologist Hermann Dürck (1869-1941) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and from 1909, as director of the department of pathology at the Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg.

In 2007, a new strain of Gram-negative bacteria was named after Rocha Lima, Bartonella rochalimae.

Partial list of writings Zur Aetiologie des Fleckfiebers. Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, 1916, 53: 567–569. Rickettsien. Handbuch der pathologischen Mikroorganismen. 3, Abteilung, Band 8, 2. Jena, Berlin and Vienna, 1930. Rickettsia prowazeki- sua descoberta e caracterização constituindo um novo grupo de microrganismos. Revista Brasileira de Medicina, 1951, 8 (5): 311–320.