The Emergence of New Scientific Disciplines in Portuguese Medicine: Marck Athias's Histophysiology Research School, Lisbon (1897–1946)

Summary

This paper discusses the emergence of new medical experimental specialties at the Medical School of Surgery (Escola Médico-Cirúrgica) and the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon University (Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa) between 1897 and 1946, as a result of the activities of Marck Athias's (1875–1946) histophysiology research school. In 1897, Marck Athias, a Portuguese physician who had graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, founded a research school in Lisbon along the lines of Michael Foster's physiology research school in England and Franz Hofmeister's physiological chemistry school in Germany. His research programme was highly innovative in Portugal. Not only did it bring together many disciples and co-workers, but it branched out and created new medical specialties within Portuguese medical science. These new disciplinary areas grew out of the study of the histology of the nervous system but eventually expanded into normal and pathological histophysiology, physiological chemistry and experimental endocrinology. The esprit de corps that existed between research school members ensured the school's success and influence in various fields social and political as well as scientific. Athias's school was strongly influenced by positivist ideals and promoted a teaching and research style that sought inspiration in Humboldt's university model, thus helping to bring about a change in the dominant scientific ethos and to modernize scientific research in Portugal during the first half of the twentieth century.

Acknowledgments

A word of gratitude is due to Ana Carneiro, Ruy E. Pinto, and A. M. Nunes dos Santos, for suggesting this subject and for their comments, and to Luis Correia Botelho and José David-Ferreira, for providing me with references that are not available in Portuguese libraries. I would also like to thank Luis Pinto, for the translation of this article, and Paula Faia of the Bento da Rocha Cabral's Scientific Research Institute, for her efficient and kind assistance on the Historical Archive and Library. To Ana Carneiro, I am most grateful for her generous suggestions and linguistic corrections and also to Trevor Levere and Paul Covill, for their linguistic revision.

Notes

¹For a detailed discussion of the historical evolution of the ‘research school’ concept, see John W. Servos, ‘Research Schools and Their Histories’, Osiris, 8 (1993), 3–15.

²John T. Merz, A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1904), 204.

³Maurice P. Crosland, The Society of Arcueil: a View of French Science at the Time of Napoleon I (Cambridge, 1967).

⁴O. Hannaway, ‘Review of Maurice Crosland, The Society of Arcueil: a View of French Science at the Time of Napoleon I’, Isis, 60 (1969), 578–81.

⁵Jack B. Morrell, ‘The Chemist Breeders: The Research Schools of Liebig and Thomas Thomson’, Ambix, 19 (1972), 1–46.

⁶Gerald L. Geison, ‘Scientific Change, Emerging Specialties, and Research Schools’, History of Science, 19 (1981), 20–40.

⁷According to Geison, a research school is a ‘small group of mature scientists pursuing a reasonably coherent program of research side-by-side with advanced students in the same institutional context engaging in direct, continuous social and intellectual interaction’. G. Geison, op. cit. (6), p. 23.

⁸Gerald L. Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology: the Scientific Enterprise in late Victorian Society (Princeton, NJ, 1978).

⁹Studies undertaken using Geison's criteria include, e.g: Alan J. Rocke, ‘Group Research in German Chemistry: Kolbe's Marburg and Leipzig Institutes’, Osiris, 8 (1993), 53–79; Jack Morrell, ‘W.H. Perkin, Jr, at Manchester and Oxford: from Irwell to Isis’, Osiris, 8 (1993), 104–26; Juan M. Sánchez-Ron, and A. Roca-Rosell, ‘Spain's First School of Physics: Blas Cabrera's Laboratorio de Investigaciones Físicas’, Osiris, 8 (1993), 127–55; P. M. Menson, ‘The Comstock Research School in Evolutionary Entomology’, Osiris, 8 (1993), 159–77; James A. Secord, ‘The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a Research School (1839–1855)’, Hist. Sci., 24 (1986), 223–75, and Joseph S. Fruton, Contrasts in Scientific Style—Research Groups in the Chemical and Biochemical Sciences (Philadelphia, PA, 1990).

¹⁰Another source for Liebig's Giessen school is Joseph Fruton, op. cit. (9).

¹¹John W. Servos, ‘The Knowledge Corporation: A. A. Noyes and Chemistry in Cal-Tech, 1915–1930’, Ambix, 23 (1976), 175–86.

¹²Gerald Holton, ‘Fermi's Group and the Recapture of Italy's Place in Physics’, in The Scientific Imagination: Case Studies (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 155–98.

¹³Joseph S. Fruton, ‘Contrasts in Scientific Style—Emil Fischer and Franz Hofmeister: Their Research Groups and Their Theory of Protein Structure’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 129 (1985), 313–70; Joseph S. Fruton, ‘The Liebig Research Group—A Reappraisal’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 132 (1988), 1–49.

¹⁴For Andrews, the notion of research unit is identical to J. Fruton's research group. Frank M. Andrews (ed.), Scientific Productivity: The Effectiveness of Research Groups in Six Countries (Cambridge, 1979).

¹⁵Ludwik Fleck is one of several authors who have warned against the adoption of a one-sided approach to the study of the emergence of new specialties, arguing that there are many factors that can play a decisive role in such processes. Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago, 1979), pp. 14–15. His views are shared by Ana Carneiro, who believes that the proposed models should be used by historians as guides in the study of small communities of innovating scientists and not as conceptual grids to be applied rigidly. Ana Carneiro, The Research School of Chemistry of Adolphe Wurtz, Paris, 1853–1884 (Canterbury, PhD thesis, 1992).

¹⁶The research school of Marck Athias has been subject of a wider investigation into the emergence of biochemistry in Portugal. For further details see Isabel Amaral, As Escolas de Investigação de Marck Athias e de Kurt Jacobsohn e a Emergência da Bioquímica em Portugal (Lisbon, PhD thesis, 2001).

¹⁷Among many prizes and honours, Santiago Ramón y Cajal was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1906, together with Camillo Golgi. He gave the Croonian Lecture in London, in 1894, and in Portugal he became an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon (Academia das Ciências de Lisboa).

¹⁸The five papers published between 1894 and 1897, while Marck Athias worked in Mathias Duval's laboratory, were related to the neuron theory. The importance of this work was acknowledged by Cajal, who quoted it in his own papers. Cf. Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘Marck Athias (1875–1946)’, Archives Portugaises des Sciences Biologiques, 9 (1947), 1–4.

¹⁹Miguel Bombarda was culturally sophisticated and had a solid scientific education. He kept up to date with the latest developments in the biomedical sciences and edited the Correio Médico and Medicina Contemporânea, providing the medical community with information on topical scientific issues. However, he did not engage in scientific research. He paid special attention to the subject which he taught—general physiology—because it concerned the problem of life, the origin and evolution of living beings, the general biological functions, and the relationship between mind and body. Bombarda was a staunch supporter of both theories, transformism and a materialism. His book, untitled Consciência e Livre Arbítrio, published in 1898 and reprinted in 1902, was dedicated to Ernst Haeckel, whom he considered ‘the founding father of monism’.

²⁰Duarte Pacheco, Morais Frias, and Cordato de Noronha submitted their doctoral theses during this period. Except for Pacheco, they were jointly supervised by Celestino da Costa. Cf. Duarte Pacheco, Histologia dos Gânglios Espinais (Lisbon, 1905), Morais A. Frias., Contribution à l’Étude des Glandes Paratyröides (Porto, 1910), J. Cordato de Noronha., Contribuição para o Estudo da Hipófise (Lisbon, 1910).

²¹Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘O Professor Marck Athias’, Folia Anatomica, 10 (1935), 3–10.

²²The role that such tours played in the development of experimental science in Portugal was the topic of a paper presented to the STEP meeting held in Lisbon in September 2000. Isabel Amaral, ‘Marck Athias (1875–1946) and Kurt Jacobsohn (1904–1991): Their Travels and the Establishment in Portugal of Laboratory-Based Research in the Bio-Sciences’, Science and Technology in the European Periphery, 2nd STEP Meeting: Scientific Travels, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, 17–21 de Setembro 2000, pp. 37–38.

²³José T. Oliveira, ‘A Educação em Portugal e o séc. XX’, História e Desenvolvimento da Ciência em Portugal, Vol. 2 (Lisbon, 1986), pp. 43–44.

²⁴ Diário do Governo n° 45, 25/2/1911.

²⁵The Committee for National Education (JEN) was a ministerial body that funded and supervised scientific research in Portugal. Its aim was to help improve national education inter alia through the establishment of research centres, scholarships to study abroad and grants for scientific publications.

²⁶Dec. Lei n° 16:381, Diário do Governo, Ministério da Instrução Pública, 3/1/1929; Dec. Lei n° 17:456, Diário do Governo, Ministério da Instrução Pública, 14/10/1929. For more details on the actual decree and the Junta's activities see its first annual report Relatório dos Trabalhos efectuados em 1929–1930 (Lisbon, Junta de Educação Nacional, 1930). The Committee for National Education was replaced in 1936 by the Institute for High Culture. Its task was to promote high culture and the arts, cultural links with foreign nations and scientific research. It was under the Ministry for Portuguese National Education.

²⁷ Gaceta de Madrid, 3/8/ 1925 (offprint), 801–3.

²⁸For additional information on the establishment of the Junta and its role in the development of science in Spain, see J. Subirá, La Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (Madrid, 1929); María J. Santesmases and E. Muñoz, ‘Scientific Organizations in Spain (1950–1970): Social Isolation and International Legitimation of Biochemists and Molecular Biologists on the Periphery’, Social Studies of Science, 27 (1997), 187–219.

²⁹Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘A vida e Obra Científica de Marck Athias’, Arquivo de Anatomia e Antropologia, 26 (1948), 144–227.

³⁰There are no specific data on this issue, but Athias's comments on the national scientific policy suggest that he did not support the regime. Celestino da Costa, for instance, claims that Athias resigned the chairmanship of the Committee for National Education because he did not believe in the role of the institution. This reflects a sceptical attitude vis-à-vis official policy. In Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘Athias e a Investigação Científica’, Cadernos Científicos (offprint), 3 (1946), 262.

³¹Augusto Celestino da Costa, A Universidade Portuguesa e o Problema da sua Reforma (Porto, 1918).

³²José A. Guimarães, ‘A personalidade do professor Marck Athias’, Clínica, Higiene e Hidrologia, 13 (1947), 266–73.

³³Abel Salazar was a doctor and a Full Professor of Histology and Embryology at the University of Oporto, but he also became known as an amateur artist, essayist, historian, and art critic.

³⁴He wrote biographies of King Carlos I, Miguel Bombarda, Fernando Matoso Santos, A. Laveran, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Albert Dustin, Max Askanazy, Henrique Parreira, and Carlos França.

³⁵Marck Athias, ‘Methodos Novos para o Estudo da Estructura do Systema Nervoso’, Medicina Contemporânea, 7 (1901), 371–72; Marck Athias, ‘O Instituto Solvay de Bruxelas’, Medicina Contemporânea, 19 (1901), 346–47; Marck Athias, ‘O Ensino da Fisiologia e da Histologia nas Faculdades de Medicina da Bélgica’, Medicina Contemporânea, 28 (1909), 357; Marck Athias, ‘O Ensino da Fisiologia na Régia Escola de Cirurgia e na Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de Lisboa’, Clínica Contemporânea, 6 (1946), 282–341.

³⁶Marck Athias, ‘La Société Portugaise des Sciences Naturelles’, Bulletin de la Société Portugaise des Sciences Naturelles, 1 (1908), 1–10; Marck Athias, ‘A Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências Naturais’, Actas do I° Congresso Nacional de Ciências Naturais (Lisbon, 1941), v–xvii.

³⁷Marck Athias, Introdução do Método Experimental e suas Principais Aplicações às Ciências Médicas e Biológicas em Portugal (Coimbra, 1940).

³⁸Marck Athias; Castro Ramos, ‘Os meios de Luta contra o Cancro em alguns Países Europeus’, Arquivo de Patologia, 2 (1930), 4–13.

³⁹Marck Athias, ‘Cytologia do Cancro (resumo)’, Medicina Contemporânea, 25 (1907), 165–68; Marck Athias, ‘Cytologia Geral do Cancro ‘, Jornal da Sociedade de Sciencias Médicas de Lisboa, 72 (1908), 110–42; Marck Athias, ‘O Problema do Cancro na Conferência Internacional de Londres’, Medicina Contemporânea, 47 (1929), 79–89; Marck Athias, ‘Organisation de la Lutte contre le Cancer au Portugal’, Arquino de Patologia, 6 (1934), 539–51; Marck Athias, ‘Organisation de la Lutte contre le Cancer’, 4, [2], [3] (1937); Marck Athias, ‘Os recentes Progressos no Estudo Experimental do Cancro’, Medicina, 27 (1937), 1–13, Marck Athias, ‘Hipóteses sobre as Causas do Cancro’, Boletim Instituto Português de Oncologia, 4, [6] (1937), 2–3; Marck Athias, ‘A luta Social contra o Cancro e o Valor das Estatísticas’, Boletim Instituto Português de Oncologia, 4 (1937), 10–12; Marck Athias, ‘Posição actual do Instituto Português de Oncologia’, Boletim Instituto Português de Oncologia, 5 (1938), 1–3; Marck Athias, ‘Hipóteses sobre a Origem do Cancro’, Boletim Instituto Português de Oncologia, 5 (1938), 4–5; Marck Athias, ‘Cancro’, Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, Marck Athias, O problema do Cancro (Lisbon, 1941); and, Marck Athias, ‘O Instituto Português de Oncologia em 1940 e 1941’, Medicina Contemporânea, 61 (1943), 17–25.

⁴⁰Marck Athias, ‘O Tratamento Anti-Rábico no Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana em 1905’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 1 (1907), 177–86; Marck Athias, ‘O Tratamento Anti-Rábico no Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana em 1906’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 2 (1909), 63–71; Marck Athias, ‘O Tratamento Anti-Rábico no Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana em 1907’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 2 (1909), 369–76; Marck Athias, ‘Le Traitement Antirabique à L'Institut de Bacteriologie Câmara Pestana en 1908’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 3 (1910), 45–57; Marck Athias, ‘Le Traitement Antirabique à L'Institut de Bacteriologie Câmara Pestana en 1909’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 3 (1912), 373–78; Marck Athias’, Le Traitement Antirabique à L'Institut de Bacteriologie Câmara Pestana en 1910–1911’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 4 (1916), 41–56; Marck Athias, ‘Le Traitement Antirabique à L'Institut de Bacteriologie Câmara Pestana en 1912’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 4 (1916), 173–78; Marck Athias and Pereira da Silva, ‘Le Traitement Antirabique à L'Institut de Bacteriologie Câmara Pestana en 1913–1914’, Archivos do Real Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana, 5 (1918), 89–99; Marck Athias, Actividade Científica, Relatório Administrativo (Lisbon, 1938).

⁴¹Topics covered included: the experimental study of hermaphroditism in higher animals; the heart's automatisms, pathologies and regulatory mechanisms; hibernation in mammals; diencephalic centres of vegetative life; current issues in endocrinology; sex hormones and their pathophysiological effects; the fiftieth anniversary of the neuron theory, and the neurophysiology of the synapse.

⁴²Marck Athias, ‘Sur les Phénomènes de Sécrétion des Cellules des Corps Jaunes Vrais’, XV Congrès Internationale de Médecine de Lisbonne, Section I (Lisbon, 1906).

⁴³Marck Athias, ‘Secreções Internas e Cancro’, Medicina Contemporânea, 9 (1942) (separata), 1–7.

⁴⁴Amaral, op. cit. (16), pp. 288–97.

⁴⁵Isabel Amaral, José David-Ferreira, Ruy E. Pinto, and Ana Carneiro, ‘A Escola de Histofisiologia de Augusto Celestino da Costa (1911–1956)’, Actas do 1° Congresso Luso-Brasileiro de História da Ciência e da Técnica (2001), 615–629.

⁴⁶Marck Athias, ‘Henrique Parreira (1895–1945)’, Arquivo de Patologia, 17 (1945), 1–18.

⁴⁷Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘Athias e a Investigação Científica’, Cadernos Científicos (separata), 3 (1946), 253.

⁴⁸This journal of Sociedade Portuguesa de Biologia was founded in 1920 and edited jointly by Marck Athias, Abel Salazar, and Augusto Celestino da Costa.

⁴⁹F. Namora, Luis Botelho, and Francisco Gentil (1878–1964) (Lisbon, 1946).

⁵⁰Gerald L. Geison, ‘Scientific Change, Emerging Specialties, and Research Schools’, History of Science, 19 (1981), 29.

⁵¹According to Celestino da Costa, ‘we had a single microscope, an old Nachet with manual focus, no immersion, no screw, an inadequate microtome and so on’ Augusto Celestino da Costa, op. cit. (46), 249–62.

⁵²Joaquim Fontes, ‘Marck Athias, Fisiologista’, Clínica, Higiene e Hidrologia (separata), 13 (1947), 1–9.

⁵³Marck Athias, ‘O Ensino da Fisiologia na Régia Escola de Cirurgia e na Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de Lisboa’, Clínica Contemporânea, 6 (1946), 338.

⁵⁴Augusto Celestino da Costa, O Ensino Médico em Lisboa—a Histologia e a Embriologia (Lisbon, 1925).

⁵⁵Augusto Celestino da Costa, op. cit. (33), 153.

⁵⁶Funding for the tour was secured by Athias's patron, Miguel Bombarda, who negotiated with the government for a loan of 110 contos (550 euros) for the establishment of the ‘new medical school’ they both longed for. Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘A vida e Obra Científica de Marck Athias’, Arquivo de Anatomia e Antropologia, 26 (1948), 153.

⁵⁷Celestino da Costa, in his book on the teaching of histology at Instituto de Histologia e Embriologia, of which he became the director in 1911, describes the development of the histology laboratory at The Medical School of Surgery between 1906 and 1911, as well as the research carried out since 1898 under Athias in the many laboratories where he had disciples. He describes the laboratory thus: ‘The laboratory at the Institute … had conditions that were unique in our country. New and abundant materials, a well-stocked library with many specialist journals and subscriptions, as well as the most recent books, spacious rooms in stark contrast with the sordid facilities at the old school’. Augusto Celestino da Costa, O Ensino Médico em Lisboa—a Histologia e a Embriologia (Lisbon, 1925).

⁵⁸Augusto Celestino da Costa, op. cit. (46), 258.

⁵⁹Augusto Celestino da Costa, op. cit. (46), 258.

⁶⁰For a detailed study of the research lines that made up the school's research programme, see Isabel Amaral, op. cit. (16), pp. 112–34.

⁶¹Teófilo Braga graduated in law from Coimbra University. As a politician, he was a herald of republicanism. He became a member of the Republican Party and was President of the First Republic. He is also known as a distinguished poet and positivist historian of Portuguese culture.

⁶²Marck Athias, ‘Santiago Ramón y Cajal’, Lisboa Médica, 11 (1913), pp. 6 and 18.

⁶³Marck Athias, ‘Santiago Ramón y Cajal’, Lisboa Médica, 11 (1913), p. 6.

⁶⁴Leo Testut, Compendio de Anatomia Descritiva, translated from the 15th French edition, revised and corrected by A. Latarjet (Barcelona, 1900).

⁶⁵Harry W. Paul, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The French Scientist's Image of German Science, 1840–1919 (Gainesville, FL, 1972).

⁶⁶It was at the Faculty of Medicine that Alsatian chemist Adolphe Wurtz lectured and established a research school. He eventually became the faculty's Dean. Wurtz believed that all the faculty's specialties should have their own laboratories. In 1868, in his capacity as Dean, he was sent by Victor Duruy, Minister of the Second Empire, to Germany, a country to which he was culturally close and where he had studied under Liebig. The report on this mission was published in 1870 and was later quoted by Celestino da Costa in his address to Sociedade de Geografia. Adolph Wurtz, Les Hautes Études Pratiques dans les Universités Allemandes (Paris, 1870); Celestino da Costa, O Problema da Investigação Científica em Portugal (Coimbra, 1929).

⁶⁷António Sérgio was an essayist who wrote for various political magazines, including Seara Nova, of which he became editor in 1923. He was a supporter of the cooperative movement, which he saw as a means to educate the masses and to change thinking and advance Portuguese society. He opposed the Estado Novo regime and took part in movements in support of non-totalitarian socialism.

⁶⁸Alfredo Bensaúde was a Portuguese geologist who graduated from Gottingen in 1881. He was a lecturer at Instituto Industrial e Comercial de Lisboa until 1910 when Brito Camacho, Minister for Economic Development, asked him to reform engineering education in Portugal. He actively promoted the adoption of new teaching methods and a renovation of teaching staff, thus winning an international reputation for Instituto Superior Técnico, established in 1911,.

⁶⁹Matias B. Ferreira de Mira, ‘A Extensão Universitaria’, A Lucta (3 September 1917).

⁷⁰Manuel de Brito Camacho was a doctor, journalist, and politician. He was a staunch supporter of liberal policies and founded the newspaper A Lucta in 1906 to promote his views. He also became a state figure when he was appointed Minister for Economic Development in 1910 and was elected leader of the unionist republicans. He was also appointed High Commisioner for Mozambique.

⁷¹Ferreira de Mira eventually became editor of the newspaper when Brito Camacho was appointed the Republic's High Commissioner for Mozambique. A Lucta ceased publication in 1922, and Ferreira de Mira stopped writing for newspapers. He took it up again between 1945 and 1947 in Jornal do Comércio, O Diabo and Diário de Notícias, where he published articles along the lines of those previously published in A Lucta.

⁷² Seara Nova was a Portuguese magazine for ‘theory and criticism’. It was edited by republican intellectuals between 1921 and 1982. Its goal was to intervene in the country's political debates without becoming involved in party politics. The articles published by Ferreira de Mira in the magazine were collected in two volumes. Ferreira de Mira, Palestras Científicas, in Cadernos de Seara Nova, 1940 (Lisbon, 1940) and Curiosidades Científicas (Lisbon, 1943).

⁷³ Diário de Notícias is a daily paper, established in 1864, that carries national as well as international information on cultural topics.

⁷⁴Examples of his style include Ferreira de Mira's article on IAC: ‘the name [Junta Nacional de Educação] does not include the adjective ‘alta’ (high) which is always somewhat suspect and slightly arrogant’. Matias B. Ferreira de Mira, ‘O Instituto para a Alta Cultura’, Diário de Notícias (26 July 1952). Another example can be found in an article with an ironic title in which he states:

Ideally—and I say this humbly—secondary education would be compulsory and free, as happens by law with primary education. But I am not unaware that human ideals are like a light that we see in the distance and that we strive to reach but never do.

Ferreira de Mira, ‘Outubro Mês Festivo para a Educação Portuguesa’, Diário de Notícias (25 October 1952).

⁷⁵Matias B. Ferreira de Mira, ‘Carta ao Dr. Moura Pinto’, in Cartas de Longe (Lisbon, 1932), p. 74.

⁷⁶A word often used by Ferreira de Mira.

⁷⁷Matias B. Fereira de Mira, ‘O Ensino Superior’, A Lucta (12 February 1917).

⁷⁸Matias B. Ferreira de Mira, ‘A Expansão Intelectual’, A Lucta (21 de May 1917).

⁷⁹Matias B. Ferreira de Mira, ‘Agua Mole’, A Lucta (26 November 1918).

⁸⁰Matias B. Ferreira de Mira, ‘Os Nossos Vizinhos’, A Lucta (12 October 1917).

⁸¹In his unpublished autobiography ‘História de uma experiência’, he wrote:

During the winter of 1902–1903, when I was in my third year and while recovering from an illness, I became aware of the shortcomings of the university and of education generally and what could be done about them, involving both in a movement for a new science … I decided to become an apostle of the idea.

⁸²Ramón y Cajal, S., ‘Recuerdos de mi Vida’, in Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934)’,O Médico (separata), 126 (1954), 6. Before this speech was published, Celestino da Costa had already published a similar article albeit on medical education in Medicina Contemporânea, in 1917, Augusto Celestino da Costa, ‘Ensino Médico e Universidades’, Medicina Contemporânea (separata), 17–19 (1917), 1–29.

⁸³Augusto Celestino da Costa, op. cit. (31), pp. 17–18.

⁸⁴Hermann Helmoltz, ‘La Liberté Académique dans les Universités Allemandes’, Revue Scientifique, 14 (1878), 813–20.

⁸⁵Augusto Celestino da Costa, op. cit. (31), pp. 49–57.

⁸⁶Álvaro Tavares, O Instituto para a Alta Cultura e a Investigação Científica em Portugal (Lisbon, 1951).