The Life and Career of Dr. Mansour Shamsa, A Pioneer in Public Health

Mansour Shamsa was born in Tehran on February 9, 1923 in a family who were physicians for eight generations throughout the Safavieh, Zandiyeh, Afshariyeh, Ghajarieh, and Pahlavi dynasties.1 +LVIDWKHU+RVVHLQ6KDPVDZDVDFXVWRPVRI¿FHUDQGKDGWR travel a lot. He received his primary education in Tehran and Babolsar and his high school education in Bandar-e-Anzali, Gorgan, and Tehran. Shamsa graduated as a general practitioner (GP) from the University of Tehran in 1950. His GP thesis was on the reservoirs of Leishmania tropica in Iran.2 Shamsa served as an assistant at the Pasteur Institute of Iran (PII) during 1949 – 1955. In 1955, he was employed formally as a physician and an expert in epidemiology at PII with a license degree from the Legislative Assembly. Shamsa was appointed the vice president of PII in 1961 and served for eight years. He was appointed the head of the Department of Epidemiology in 1968 and served as the authority for controlling plague outbreaks and related researches in PII. He also served as the deputy of medical services and head of the Red Crescent in Iran. He was appointed as the director of PII in 1979.