Henrique de Brito Belford Roxo (1877-1969) was a full professor of the psychiatric clinic (1921-1945), the first director of the Institute of Psychiatry of Rio de Janeiro (1938- 1945), and professor emeritus of the University of Brazil (1946). Roxo authored several books and published roughly 140 papers in the main national medical journals, such as Brasil Médico, as well as in foreign scientific journals, like the L’Encéphale (France) and Revista de Criminologia, Psiquiatria Y Medicina Legal (Argentina). He published numerous articles in the Arquivos Brasileiros de Psiquiatria, Neurologia e Ciências Afins, the first Brazilian journal specialized in psychiatry created in 1905, which sought to establish a relationship between mental illness and cerebral alterations or dysfunctions. Roxo published the Manual of Psychiatry, which combined 20 years of experience with patients from the National Asylum for the Alienated with modern concepts about mental illnesses.