Born at Recife in Brazil, Da Silva, the son of distinguished general surgeon Arsenio Tavares da Silva, qualified at the University of São Paulo Medical School in 1940 and in 1945 carried out experimental work leading to renewed interest in the surgical treatment of schistosomiasis and the surgery of portal hypertension, carrying on a considerable correspondence with Sir Philip Manson-Bahr. Da Silva first came to the United Kingdom on a British Council scholarship in 1950. His interest was directed to the newly emerging specialty of cardiothoracic surgery and he went to Leeds to work with Mr Philip Allison. This was clearly a most productive time in his clinical training and instead of staying for four months, as had been his intention, it was two years before he returned to Brazil. During this time he was able to visit Sir Clement Price Thomas and Lord Brock at the Brompton Hospital and observed the former carrying out lung resections and the latter pulmonary valvotomy. His work at Leeds led to the submission of a thesis on the measurement of left atrial pressure in man. He returned to Brazil in 1952 and started the first cardiothoracic unit in Recife, undertaking such operations as closed mitral valvotomy, resection of coarctation of the aorta and closure of persistent ductus arteriosus. In 1956 he published a monograph on the surgical treatment of hiatus hernia. The following year he became professor of surgery at the University of Pernambuco and established a proper cardiac catheterisation laboratory. In 1960 he was the first person in that part of Brazil to undertake open heart operations using cardio-pulmonary bypass, well ahead of many of his contemporaries working in more favourable professional surroundings. His energy and enthusiasm ensured that this work continued and there are now three teams operating in Recife, performing all types of cardiac and thoracic surgery. Da Silva was a great anglophile, and estimated that he visited Britain on at least forty different occasions. Under his guidance many undergraduate and postgraduate students carried out periods of training in universities in the United Kingdom but particularly in Leeds, Oxford and London. Students from the University of Pernambuco were also seconded to the Universities of Oxford and London for periods of study. Da Silva was an accomplished artist, both in water-colours and oils. He was chess champion of Brazil on two occasions, and a past president of the Brazil Chess Federation. For many years he regularly attended the annual Hastings Chess Tournament. His passion for chess is perhaps best exemplified by an occasion when he was returning by air to Recife from São Paulo. He happened to start a game with a fellow traveller and became so oblivious to all extraneous events that he finally ended up 800 miles north of his planned destination! Da Silva died on 27 June 1994.