So, I think we have a first for Vesalius Awards this year due to a little bit of confusion. The WNS, we've had a medical student win sort of one half of the Vesalius Award. He presented his paper about two hours ago on Sir Victor Horsley, and the award normally given to a resident is Dr. De Silva's, and for this year it's a first. It's an international group from Brazil, and so Dr. De Silva is going to be presenting to us on his work on the travels of Fedor Krause as he came to Brazil, so we're excited to hear that. So, congratulations, Sal. Thank you. So, we're going to listen to Sal, and then it's going to be, in order for us to get out of here on time, keep your presentations strictly to 10 minutes, and if you have not uploaded your presentation, it is not in the system, I suggest you go to the speaker ready room immediately. So, Dr. Daghi and Dr. Pesso Giacomo are going to moderate this session. Well, I'd like to thank the WNS for this award, and I also like to thank my professor, Dr. Iberval Figueiredo. Without him, none of this would be possible. And thank you for the opportunity to speak to all of you. I believe everyone here knows Fyodor Krause, and if you don't know him, surely you know what he did. Krause is the father of German neurosurgery, and devises several operative approaches to previous unreachable regions of the brain, including trigeminal ganglion, pituitary fossa, cerebral pontine angle, and the pineal region, and was among the earliest surgical pioneers to have stimulated and mapped the brain. In the final years of his career, Krause traveled to Latin America in 1920 and 1922, and Krause's associations and motivations for his travels to South America and his work there have not been well chronicled. In this study, we describe Krause's activities in South America with the context of the Germans, the efforts to recover German influence after the World War I. The consequence of the World War I compromised the relations between German and many other countries, including Brazil. What had once been German domination in most fields of science was mostly disordered after the war. As a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles, there were official and unofficial proscriptions against German as a scientific language, and impediments against participation of German scientists in international congress. And challenged by this scenario, segments of German society developed their own strategies in order to restore German's economic and political and scientific relations with other countries. And in this context, science began to play a relevant role in reinforcing German's international relations and cultural policies, becoming the spearhead of German foreign policy. The policy of disseminating German science was first directed to Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, particularly the South American nations of Brazil and Argentina. Thus, from 1920, a segment of German scientific community developed a number of international public health and scientific exchange with South America. Germans considered the region as a friendly continent whose scientific and intellectual circles had long admired German science in several areas. At that time, German medical science had achieved important results against several diseases of global prevalence. A supportive network was developed for students wishing to complement their training in German. Exchange activities were aimed at transforming Latin American medical students and doctors into propagandists of Germanism in their countries of origin, in which they could begin to influence political, economic, and scientific positions. But how was Krauss's trip to Brazil inserted in the context of the Germanism? On June 1920, Krauss became the first neurosurgeon to come to Brazil. At this time, he was professor at a university in Berlin. Several individuals played roles in arranging Krauss's visit. Odesto Guimarães, who is here, on the center, invited Krauss to come to Brazil with a significant personal interest, as Krauss operated on his daughter, who had hydrocephalus a few days after his arrival in Brazil. In his reception at Medical School of Rio de Janeiro, Krauss eloquently acknowledged the invitation and speaking initially in Portuguese, he affirmed, only those who know the language of a nation can judge these feelings. In a lecture that later became a scientific article, Krauss reported a case of a soldier with right frontal parietal gunshot wound that, after one month, had developed a 5-centimeter-diameter brain abscess. He retrieved 52 skull bone fragments, drained the abscess, and was surprised by the outcome of the complete recovery after three weeks without neurological morbidity. In another report, he described a case of a 35-year-old soldier wounded by grenade fragments that penetrate into the brain through the nose and orbits, destroying almost entirely the frontal pollus, and no neurological deficits was noticed. He emphasized that the frontal pollus were very resilient to lesion, and often no neurological morbidity results from such injuries. He finished the study stating that the surgeon should behave often as a physiologist and consult the internist and the neurologist when necessary, affirming collaboration is the basis of the progress. And in 1922, Krauss returned to the tropics. At the welcome reception, always elaborating the need for scientific and cultural exchange, he stated in Portuguese, if you, my dear colleagues, give the word to a representative of Germany to practice intellectual expansion, you attest once more that for you the science has no frontiers. In this second visit, Krauss published another paper where he reported two cases of fourth ventricle cystic circles. The first was a 43-year-old male that came to the hospital comatose and died after three days. The necropsis findings were compatible with fourth ventricle cystic circles. The second case was a 53-year-old butcher who complained of severe headache. The neurological examination revealed cerebellar ataxia and papilledema. Krauss performed a suboccipital cariectomy, finding a cystic formation in midline, and additional dissection and manual retraction of the cerebellum revealed several vesicles originated for the fourth ventricle. In this paper, Krauss elaborated discussion over the necessity and dangers of opening the fourth ventricle, warning about the localization of respiratory and cardiovascular centers. In summary, Fidel Krauss visits to Brazil inserting a context of increasing necessity to Germany to reestablish economic, political, cultural, and scientific power and influence, a doctrine known as Germanism. As a kind of ambassador, Krauss succeeded in rebuilding the German image and helped in the reconstruction of the diplomatic relations between Germany and Brazil. The Krauss involvement helped to put Brazilian neurosurgery on a firm foundation, and unfortunately, after two decades, these relationships would again be disturbed for another great tragedy. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Thank you and congratulations.

Vesalius Awards

medical student

Sir Victor Horsley

Dr. De Silva

Fedor Krause