Born in Rio de Janeiro on December 18, 1855, Adolpho Lutz was educated in Switzerland, his parent’s homeland. After receiving his medical diploma from the University of Bern in 1890, he spent time at the top university centers in Europe. In 1881, back in Brazil, he set up a clinic in Limeira, São Paulo. Four years later he moved to Hamburg at the invitation of the German dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna, with whom he conducted research on the bacteriology of Hansen’s disease and other dermatological maladies. He was appointed by Unna to head the leprosarium of Kalihi, in Hawaii, where he stayed from 1889 to 1892. In 1893, he became director of the Bacteriological Institute of São Paulo, where he played a decisive role in combating the infectious diseases then afflicting the state. He left the Bacteriological Institute in 1908 to work at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute. A tireless researcher, he wrote foundational studies in fields such as parasitology, veterinary medicine, and microbiology. He worked at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute until his death on October 6, 1940.