The acknowledgement of the need to organize and publish the catalogue of the Museum of History of Medicine Maximiano Lemos, in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto is most certainly contemporary to its existence. A generic guide about the history, functionality and objectives of the Museum had been proving necessary to make the medical heritage of the museum wide and adequately known. Medicine is a truly universal subject that calls the attention of society in general. The history of this science, bound to the history of the medical object, of which it is inseparable, represents an inexhaustible source of scientific knowledge, as well as technological, technical and clinical. The specificity of the subject requires an accessible language, and increases the need for the existence of a catalogue of the Museum of the History of Medicine.
Professor Luís de Pina (1901-1972), creator of the Museum (1933), while accompanying its transference from the prior facilities of the Medical School to the new building (in Asprela), in 1959-60, gave the exposed objects a chronological ordering. Since the space destined to the museum was compound by a central corridor, from which the exhibiting rooms opened, Professor Luís de Pina decided to name each of the rooms after one Professor of the Medical School of Porto who had improved the studies of History of Medicine. This was a simple but lasting honor. And so followed the names of Gouveia Osório, Pedro Dias, Ricardo Jorge, Carlos Lopes, João de Meira and Hernâni Monteiro. Later, Professor Maria Olívia Rúber de Meneses (1932-1990), created the room Luís de Pina. Nowadays, due to a rehabilitation of space, two new spaces appeared: the rooms Carlos Ribeiro da Silva Lopes and Professor Maria Olívia Rúber de Meneses. Such growth of the Museum comes from the fact that this Museum includes all periods of humanity and the present and therefore is receptive to every object, document and iconography which might represent some improvement to the knowledge of the history of this science. The reading of this catalogue allows making an idea of the extent and value of the medical heritage of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, as well as of the efforts led by teachers, students and staff in order to preserve it and to enlarge it. At the same time, it is a way of creating in the reader awareness for the importance of the medical object, often single witness of a practice from the past. To make a project of several generations of Medical historians true is for us a great joy.
Professor Luís de Pina (1901-1972), creator of the Museum (1933), while accompanying its transference from the prior facilities of the Medical School to the new building (in Asprela), in 1959-60, gave the exposed objects a chronological ordering. Since the space destined to the museum was compound by a central corridor, from which the exhibiting rooms opened, Professor Luís de Pina decided to name each of the rooms after one Professor of the Medical School of Porto who had improved the studies of History of Medicine. This was a simple but lasting honor. And so followed the names of Gouveia Osório, Pedro Dias, Ricardo Jorge, Carlos Lopes, João de Meira and Hernâni Monteiro. Later, Professor Maria Olívia Rúber de Meneses (1932-1990), created the room Luís de Pina. Nowadays, due to a rehabilitation of space, two new spaces appeared: the rooms Carlos Ribeiro da Silva Lopes and Professor Maria Olívia Rúber de Meneses. Such growth of the Museum comes from the fact that this Museum includes all periods of humanity and the present and therefore is receptive to every object, document and iconography which might represent some improvement to the knowledge of the history of this science. The reading of this catalogue allows making an idea of the extent and value of the medical heritage of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, as well as of the efforts led by teachers, students and staff in order to preserve it and to enlarge it. At the same time, it is a way of creating in the reader awareness for the importance of the medical object, often single witness of a practice from the past. To make a project of several generations of Medical historians true is for us a great joy.
