ABSTRACT
HISTORY The parasitic fungal genus Pneumocystis was discovered in 1909 by Chagas in the lungs of Trypanosome-experimentally infected Guinea pigs (1). He described the genus as Schizotrypanum and thought it to represent a life cycle variant of Trypanaosoma cruzi (2). In 1910, Antonio Carinii also identified and mistook similar organisms in rat lungs as a novel trypanosome. The organism was correctly identified by the Delanoe¨s in 1912 and renamed Pneumocystis carinii after Dr. Carinii (3).
