| Pedro Francisco da Costa Alvarenga | |
| Honorific-Suffix: | CavTE ComC OSE |
| Birth Date: | 1826 |
| Birth Place: | Oeiras, Piauí, Brazil |
| Death Place: | Sacramento, Lisbon, Portugal |
| Nationality: | Portuguese |
| Occupation: | Physician and professor |
| Signature: | Assinatura Pedro Francisco da Costa Alvarenga.svg |
Pedro Francisco da Costa Alvarenga (1826 – 14 July 1883) was a Brazilian-born Portuguese physician. He taught Materia Medica at the and left several works dealing chiefly with cardiology. He was a founder and main editor of the Gazeta Médica de Lisboa.[1]
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.[2]
Alvarenga discovered the double crural murmur, a sign of aortic insufficiency (published in 1855, translated to French in 1856[3]), almost a decade before Duroziez.
The Alvarenga Prize, named after Alvarenga, is awarded by the Swedish Medical Society.[5]