Pedro L. Mangabeira Albernaz

Some Notes About My Father My father was born in Bagé, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, grew up in Salvador, in the state of Bahia, and lived most of his life in Campinas, in the state of São Paulo. His parents were from Bahia. The reason he was born in Bagé is that his father was an army physician and was sent to many different places; my grandfather and my grandmother moved back to Salvador when my father was two years old. I never met my paternal grandfather. He died of a congenital heart disease when he was 39 years old. My father told me that one day he brought home a pulse plethysmograph, a spring operated device that recorded pulse. My father was in the third year of medical school but had never seen this instrument and was curious about it. So my grandfather took a piece of paper, blackened it with the smoke of a candle and attached it to the plethysmograph. Then he placed his finger on the instrument and set it in motion. The recording needle added a white tracing to t