Teaching, Research and Community Service on the History of Medecine and Medical Museology.

The first lessons on History of Medicine, lectured by Francisco de Assis e Sousa Vaz (1797-1870), in the School of Medicine and Surgery of Porto, have records in 1836. The program in this subject included seventeen lessons, that presented in a pedagogical and pioneer way the General History of Medicine and was part of the seventh discipline, taught in the fifth year of the medical course. With scarce periods of interruption, the teaching of History of Medicine continued in the Medical School of Porto associated with General Pathology, Pathological Anatomy, Legal Medicine and Professional Deontology. It gained autonomy in the period of Maximiano Augusto de Oliveira Lemos (1860-1923), Luís José de Pina Guimarães (1901-1972), Maria Olívia Pires Firmino Rúber de Meneses (1932-1990) and Amélia Assunção Beira de Ricon Ferraz (born 1961). Most of the programmes chosen for the teaching of this subject are known. The teaching staff of the Medical School of Porto made countless efforts to demonstrate the usefulness of a regular course of History of Medicine, accepting the surcharge of contents and time, writing several research works and the program of the discipline, acquiring national and foreign medical books to increase a specialized library and organizing the Museum – the Museum Maximiano Lemos of History of Medicine, center of medical-historical research and important archive of national medical heritage.
On the 17^th October 1933 the Museum Maximiano Lemos of History of Medicine was funded under initiative of Professor Luís de Pina. This teacher of the Medical School of Porto followed Professor Maximiano Lemos – patron of the Museum – in the discipline of History of Medicine in this Faculty. At the time of the 1925 Medical-Historical Exhibition, in Palácio de Cristal, as a commemoration of the first hundred years of the King’s School of Surgery of Porto, some of the objects presented there were offered to the Faculty of Medicine of Porto by their owners. Other objects came after those, from several Services of the Faculty, and ancient books of Medicine. Professor Abel Salazar (1889-1946), at the time director of the works of renewal and expansion in the Faculty, created the necessary conditions to its settlement in the building of the Faculty. The organization and the acquisition of new object were under the responsibility of Professor Luís de Pina, who had a Ph.D. in Medicine since 1930 and was Professor in charge of the Discipline of History of Medicine and Professional Deontology. In 1959-60, the Museum was transferred to the new facilities of the Faculty of Medicine of Porto. It has been located since on the 6^th floor NW of the new building, shared between both institutions: the Faculty of Medicine and Hospital S. João. Once more, the re-organization of the Museum was due to the work of Professor Luís de Pina, efforts made lighter through the co-operation of his assistant, Maria Olívia Rúber de Meneses. The space left for the Museum consisted of a central corridor from which opened the seven exhibiting rooms, the classroom and the library. This space was kept until nowadays. Each room of the Museum was named after one professor of the Medical School of Porto who has known how to promote the national studies of History of Medicine. The exhibition followed a chronological standard of presentation, from the beginnings of human existence to nowadays. The Museum book of entries shows the continuous and growing reception of donations from privates or from institutions somehow connected to Medicine. There has been a concern, since the creation of the Museum, of rendering to the donating entity a formal thanking, describing the nature of the donation. Subordinated to the History of Medical Science, the collections of the Museum are diverse and of great value, due to their rarity and quality of manufacturing. The paintings, the drawings, the caricature, the sculpture, the photographs, the medals, the goldsmith works, the instruments, the machines and the medical and surgical gear, the objects of Pharmacy, the manuscript, the medical book and various iconography compose the variegated heritage of the Museum Maximiano Lemos.

After the jubilation of Professor Luís de Pina until the Ph.D. of Professor Maria Olívia Rúber de Meneses, Professor Carlos Ribeiro da Silva Lopes, Full Professor of Legal Medicine and Forensic Toxicology (1906-1997) followed him in the direction of Museum. After her PhD. (1971), Professor Maria Olívia became the director of the Museum and Professor in charge of the discipline History of Medicine and Forensic and Professional Deontology until 1990. Her assistant, Amélia Ricon Ferraz, was her successor in the direction of the Museum and in the teaching of History of Medicine until the nowadays. She made  her PHD in 1996 on the History of Medecine. Since 1959-60 essentially, the Museum of History of Medicine had the required conditions for developing under and postgraduate education. More than calling the attention of the student to the Medical Museology we try to give him the basic indispensable knowledge to the identification, characterization and cataloguing of the medical object. Its history enhances a sequence of medical, historical, scientific and technological knowledge. It also assumes an historical framing and a evolutionary analysis. The Museum educates the student of Medicine and Dental Medicine who, recognized, watches for its maintenance and continuity. So, he participates in the researches and ongoing tasks in the Museum, in the organization and guidance of the exhibitions and in the execution of practical works that increase the content of the specialized library of the Museum. As to the undergraduate education, we were concerned in responding to the requests of several Portuguese High Schools by making guided visits to the Museum or by presenting subjects of their interest.. Efforts were made in order to maintain and stimulate an up-to-date idea expressed and tested by the Northern Section of the Portuguese Association of Museology in 1987, concerning the pedagogic action of the Museums of the Northern region. In the book of entries of the Museum there were a number of opinions supporting the importance of the medical studies dissemination. Postgraduate teaching addressed the presentation of subjects of medical historical nature in National and International Congresses of various Medical and Surgical Specialties, the organization of historical exhibitions occurring by the time of the academic festivities or scientific meetings, and the bibliographic direction of works and presentations requested by teachers, specialty residents and specialists. According to this framework there was a permanent concern in calling the attention of the several practitioners to the importance of the medical patrimony and the consequent need of its identification and maintenance. This acknowledgement combined with the awareness of the work developed by the Museum “Maximiano Lemos” History of Medicine in the collection, detailed cataloguing and preservation of each object of the Museum and its dissemination were decisive factors to an increasing maintenance of the medical patrimony and an exponential advent of medical and surgical apparatus to this Institution. The identification of the object is not enough. It is essential to characterize it, according to its history, function, shape and material it is made of, maker’s mark, dimensions, date or period of manufacturing and the mention of the donor, among other information. Some of this information is vital to the knowledge of the origin and evolution of the medical and surgical instrument in an international context. The restoration of textiles, paintings and documents of the Museum represents a priority undergone due to the work of specialized staff, with the sponsorship of the Direction of the Faculty of Medicine of Porto.

The scientific, technologic and museologic researches were the basis of all activities carried out by the Museum. Under and Postgraduate education were benefited with the bibliographic and iconographic researches based on the works and journals of the Museum as well as the meanings of  its collection. It is worth to mention the precious contribution of the “Reservados”(Private) of the Service of Documentation and Iconography of the Faculty of Medicine of Porto that enables a better knowledge of the past of the National and International Medicine since the 16th century to nowadays and an easy understanding of the evolution of the ancient medical book. The exchange established between institutions related with the History of Medicine or medical Museology enables to define the common lines of research in which the experiences of Porto and Portugal were stimulated and appreciated. The judgments of the Heads of the Services of the Faculty of Medicine of Porto are highly important to the understanding of the meaning and functioning of the donations made to this Institution. There is a permanent link between the Society of History of Portuguese Medicine, the Portuguese Society of Museology, the Society of Studies of the 18^th century, the Association Européene des Musées d’Histoire des Sciences Médicales, the American Medical Museum Association, the Royal British Society of Medicine, for the Section of History of Medicine, the Belgian Association for the History of Medicine and the International Society of History of Medicine, among others.