Carlos Juan Finlay's Character Sketch

Carlos Juan Finlay was born in current day Camagüey, Cuba to Edward Finlay and Eliza de Barrés on December 3, 1833.6 His father was a physician who had specialized in ophthalmology and fought along with Simon Bolivar. Although Finlay’s father was from Scotland and his mother was from France, they tried to embrace the Cuban culture and changed their names two years after arriving to Cuba. When he was 13 years old, Finlay was sent to France in order to start the first stage of formal education. He was later sent back to back to Cuba because he developed cholera. The cholera made it hard for him to talk so he had to enroll in speech therapy. He went to Europe again but delayed in coming to France because of the political turmoil during that time.
He later went from Germany back to France to continue his studies.
However, after contracting typhoid fever he went back to Cuba. His original name was Juan Carlos Finlay but he changed it to Carlos Juan Finlay in his teenage years in order to show his loyalty to Cuba when he arrived back for the second time. The University of Havana did not recognize the European credits he had obtained which prevented him from obtaining a bachelor's degree. However, in 1851, he was able to get enrolled in Jefferson Medical
College. It was there where he met John Kearsley Mitchell, a advocate part of the germ theory of disease and one of Finlay’s professors, which caused him to think more about diseases. Finlay graduated in 1855 and settled down in Cuba to open a medical practice. During this time, he treated many patients and did ophthalmic surgeries. This interest in ophthalmology stemmed from inspiration from his father, but Finlay slowly began to turn to research in infectious diseases. Although he conducted all types of medical research in different areas, such as cholera and leprosy, he was specifically interested in yellow fever. For example, out of more than 100 of his medical articles, 70 of those scientific articles were about yellow fever. During this time, there were many yellow fever and malaria outbreaks in Cuba which caused Finlay to question the spread of the disease. This is what led to a remarkable journey of research into yellow fever for Carlos Juan Finlay. Because of his research he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seven times. However, Finlay died on August 20, 1915 because of a stroke caused by brain seizures. After his death a military hospital was named after him and the Finlay Institution of Investigations in Tropical Medicine was created in honor of him and his work. During that time, the transmission of yellow fever was a popular topic.
There were a multitude of theories, the two main ones being miasma and fomites. The theory of miasma was that yellow fever and other diseases were spreading because of rotting organic matter caused by the climate, such as chemicals in soil which caused what was known as “night air”. The theory of fomites which basically said that microorganisms would attach to non living objects or things, such as doorknobs, clothing, etc…, and that was how diseases were being spread. In the mid 18th century believed in the theory of miasma at first as many of the diseases were spreading in warm climates. However, his opinions changed afterwards. Although the theory of germ disease was still a new concept, John Kearsley Mitchell and other professors influenced a great deal of what Finlay believed about microorganisms and the spread of diseases. While Carlos Finlay traveled from places to places, he would study the symptoms in the people affected caused by yellow fever and malaria. He started to realize that most of the people he examined would also have mosquito bites. Thus, he concluded that yellow fever was being spread by
mosquitoes.