On the 17th October 1933 the Museum Maximiano Lemos of History of Medicine was funded under the 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 6th 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 iconographies 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 of 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.