Luis Daniel Beauperthuy

Louis-Daniel Beauperthuy (25 August 1808 – 3 September 1871) was a French medical doctor who made important contributions to the study of the causes of infectious diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, cholera and leprosy. He was the first in Europe to systematically argue that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted by mosquitos.

Biography Beauperthuy was born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, an archipelago in the Caribbean, where his father Pierre Daniel Beauperthuy was a physician. He was the second of six siblings. He studied medicine at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, and obtained his M.D. in 1837. His thesis was titled De la Climatologie (Of the Climatology). He was immediately appointed by the Paris Museum of Natural History as a "Travelling Naturalist" to work in Orinoco, Venezuela. His primary duty was to study the prevalent diseases in the area. He was one of the earliest scientists to observe microorganism using microscopy in relation to diseases.

Although Beauperthuy believed that leprosy was an insect-borne disease, a method of treatment he developed in the late 1860s was effective, and his service became greatly demanded. In early 1870, he was invited to test his treatment method at Trinidad, and was requested to remain there. British colonial officers heard of his works and arranged his service at Guyana (the British Guiana), where leprosy was rampant. In August 1870, Beauperthuy arrived at Kaow Island where the British government was establishing a hospital for leprosy. His report also mentions that yellow fever was caused by a virus which he called "vegeto-animal" that was transmitted by mosquitos. This was the first observation that a disease such as yellow fever was caused by germs and transmitted by insects.

He even identified the particular group of mosquitos that transmit yellow fever as the "domestic species" of "striped-legged mosquito", which can be recognised as Aedes aegypti, the actual vector.

Legacy A hospital in Basse-Terre, called the Centre hospitalier Louis-Daniel Beauperthuy, was established in 1959 in his honour.