Visit to South America, October 1974

Copy of telgram, text of lecture on 'Prevention of genetical disease - future prospects' at 14th International Congress of Pediatrics, and photocopies of press-cuttings reporting on Fraser's visit in Brazil.

1974

1 file

During his visit George Fraser lectured at the 14th International Congress of Pediatrics, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 3-9 October 1974 and visited Newton and Eleidi Freire-Maia at Curitiba, giving two lectures in the Department of Genetics, Federal University of Paraná. In the future he was to make a number of further visits to Brazil.

In his contribution to the Festschrift for Fraser (PP/GRF/A.11), A. Freire-Maia recorded,

'George has also lectured in Curitiba (1974), Rio de Janeiro (1992), and in Curitiba (again), Porto Alegre, and Caxambu in 1996 after his attendance at the Ninth International Congress of Human Genetics in Rio de Janeiro, but I missed him each time! I could not be in any of these places. In 1974, in Curitiba, he visited the Department of Genetics of my late brother, Newton, and of his wife, Eleidi, both longtime friends of his (as I have mentioned, Eleidi is also a contributor to this Festschrift/Liber Amicorum). Several articles about George appeared in the local newspapers during this visit to Curitiba, and he was greatly startled to see himself portrayed as a Cobrão Internacional (International Cobra) in one of these articles. So he received an explanation—that in our Brazilian career-structure, if the young initiate eventually reaches the top after having wriggled his way through various intermediate stages, it is as a Cobra. Very logical, thought George, a Big Snake!'