Pedro Francisco da Costa Alvarenga

Life & Legacy

Pedro Francisco da Costa Alvarenga (1826 – 14 July 1883) was a Brazilian-born Portuguese medical doctor. He taught Materia Medica at the Lisbon Medical Surgical School and left several works dealing chiefly with cardiology. He was a founder and main editor of the Gazeta Médica de Lisboa.

He became notable for his clinical work during the cholera morbus and yellow fever epidemics in Lisbon in 1856 and 1857, respectively. Alvarenga also introduced the sphygmograph, the first non-intrusive device used to estimate blood pressure, to Portugal.

Alvarenga discovered the double crural murmur, a sign of aortic insufficiency (published in 1855, translated to French in 1856), almost a decade before Duroziez.