Medical-Surgical School

The regulations (regimento) of St Elizabeth’s Hospital (Hospital de Santa Isabel) in this city, approved by the Managing Board (Mesa Gerente) of the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa da Misericórdia) on 10 August 1816 and confirmed by royal warrant (provisão régia) of 19 October 1819, created, in the nineteen articles that make up Title V, a medical-surgical public class (aula) attached to the hospital. Its purpose was ‘to prevent the ruin of humanity in this Colony through the ignorance of the Barbers, who without the proper knowledge go about the countryside treating people, bringing to the grave those who would still be alive if they were treated by skilled practitioners, or by men less ignorant than such quacks’.

We do not know when this class began to operate or how long it lasted, but we know that it had a short existence, for in 1824 the governor and captain-general informed the government in mainland Portugal of the urgent need to create a Class of Operative Surgery. He pointed out that on Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) and in the Madeiran countryside there was not a single operating surgeon, and that ‘one found only the odd wretched bloodletter, of whose competence many of those who called him in for the treatment and cure of their diseases have been victims’. The same governor took up this weighty matter again the following year, without his efforts and endeavours producing the slightest practical result.

The distinguished Madeiran and eminent physician Dr João Francisco de Oliveira, while president (provedor) of the Holy House of Mercy of this city in 1825, created a class in surgery in the hospital attached to it. He taught it himself, without payment, for some time, and later entrusted its teaching to the surgeon of that hospital, Dr Joaquim de Oliveira Simões. It was around this time that Dr João Francisco de Oliveira presented to the government a plan for the creation of a medical school, setting out the bases of its operation, teaching method, etc. Although it met with the approval of the higher authorities, it was not granted.

From what has been set out, one can see clearly how medicine and surgery were practised in this archipelago, and the need to create a scientific establishment that would train individuals sufficiently qualified to practise them is eloquently demonstrated.

The decree of 29 December 1836 created a medical-surgical school in each of the capitals of the overseas districts. Each school was to have two chairs: the first would teach anatomy, physiology, surgical operations and the art of obstetrics, and the second pathology, materia medica and therapeutics. They were to be held respectively by the principal physician and the principal surgeon of the hospital to which the school was attached. The first chair would have an assistant demonstrator, who would prepare the anatomical work, and the hospital's pharmacist would give lessons in pharmacy in the hospital dispensary. The ministerial order (portaria) of 16 January 1837, addressed to the administrator-general (administrador geral) of this district, ordered the provisions of that decree to be carried out in full in Madeira. The Medical-Surgical School (Escola Médico-Cirúrgica) of Funchal had been created.

The Administrative Committee (Comissão Administrativa) of the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa da Misericórdia), then chaired by João Agostinho Jervis de Atouguia, set about carrying out the orders issued by the central government. Without delay it adapted the former ward for British subjects and two adjoining rooms to house the new School, which thus became the highest-ranking educational establishment here in Madeira. The surgeon, physician and apothecary of St Elizabeth’s Hospital at the time were, respectively, Dr Luís Henriques, Dr Lourenço José Moniz and the pharmacist Nicandio Joaquim de Azevedo. In accordance with the express wording of the decree, they were entrusted with teaching the chairs that made up the new School's course. Because the illustrious Madeiran Dr Lourenço Moniz was a deputy for this island and had given up his post as professor at the School, he was replaced in this office by Dr António da Luz Pita. The Funchal medical school had the good fortune to begin its work under the direction of two eminent physicians, who brought great honour to this new establishment of higher education. From the outset it began to earn the good reputation it always enjoyed, not only in our country but also in some foreign lands.

On 2 May 1837 the school council met for the first time. It was made up of Dr Luís Pita, president, Dr Luís Henriques, member, and Nicandio de Azevedo, secretary. This was also the day on which the School was definitively installed, and the first classes began in the following October. The post of assistant demonstrator was only filled the next year, by Dr Juvenal Honório de Ornelas. The appointments to these four posts only became definitive by the decree of 8 September 1838. Dr Luís Henriques and the pharmacist Nicandio Joaquim de Azevedo served until 1845, the year in which they died, and Dr Luz Pita until 1866, when he obtained his retirement.

In 1850 Dr António Alves da Silva was appointed professor at the School; he died in office in 1854. Dr João da Câmara Leme Homem de Vasconcelos, later Viscount and Count of Canavial, held the same post from 1861 until 1883, the year in which he retired.

Dr João Augusto Teixeira and Dr Maurício Augusto Sequeira joined the teaching staff of the Medical School in 1874 and taught their chairs until 1907 and 1910 respectively, the years in which they died. Dr Nuno Silvestre Teixeira was appointed professor in 1883 and remained in this post until the School was abolished in 1910.

Francisco de Paula Drolhe, Manuel Figueira de Chaves and Francisco Clementino de Sousa, who had taken their medical course at the Funchal School, each served twice as interim professors at the same School. Drs Cândido Joaquim da Silva, Acúrsio Garcia Ramos, Carlos Leite Monteiro and Fortunato Alfredo Pita also taught chairs there.

Nicandio Joaquim de Azevedo, the first secretary and first professor of pharmacy, died in 1845. José Figueira da Silva was then appointed to this post; he died in 1858 and was followed by Francisco Xavier de Sousa and then by Abílio Augusto Martins, appointed in 1880. Vasco da Silva Pereira, who succeeded him, was the last secretary and professor of pharmacy of our Medical School.

Its directors were Dr Luís Henriques (1838–1845), Dr António da Luz Pita (1845–1866), Dr João da Câmara Leme Homem de Vasconcelos, later Count of Canavial (1866–1883), Dr João Augusto Teixeira (1883–1907) and Dr Maurício Augusto Sequeira (1907–1910).

The course lasted three years until 1842 and four years from 1843, and it remained so until the school’s abolition. The first doctors trained at this School were Valentim Maximiano de Sousa, António José da Silva, João Luís Monteiro Júnior, Francisco Simplício de Vasconcelos Lomelino and João Augusto de Oliveira, who completed their course in 1840. Of the four-year course, the first doctors to qualify there were Crispiniano Evangelista da Silva, Manuel Lúcio de Freitas, António Manuel da Silva and Teófilo Joaquim Vieira.

In 1902 Dona Palmira Conceição de Sousa and Dona Henriqueta Gabriela de Sousa completed the course at this School, the first and only women doctors ever to qualify there.

In its 73 years of existence the Funchal School qualified about 250 doctors. They have practised medicine freely, and often with real brilliance and remarkable skill, not only throughout the Madeiran archipelago but also in many places in mainland Portugal, the Azores and the overseas colonies, and even in some foreign countries. To speak only of the dead, we must mention the names of Manuel Figueira de Chaves, Henrique Crawford Rodrigues, João Crawford Rodrigues, António Augusto de Santa Clara, Gabriel Franco de Castro, Luís Augusto Rodrigues, João de Deus Vieira, Henrique José Vera Cruz, Francisco Clementino de Sousa and Henrique Venâncio de Ornelas, who brought great honour to the school that had trained them.

Our Medical School had a library of some two thousand volumes, which was kept in the building of the Misericórdia (Holy House of Mercy, a lay charitable brotherhood) and is today in the Municipal Library.

Of the inaugural theses or dissertations presented by students on completing their courses, we know of only one that was printed: that of the student António Francisco da Silva Ramos, a native of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal). It dealt with fibrinous pneumonia and with the aetiology and treatment of carcinoma, and was defended in 1895.

Under the School’s original organisation, those who completed its course could receive only the licence of cirurgião ministrante (practising surgeon). This was later modified, and subsequently the decree of 22 June 1870 granted its students advantages and privileges they had not previously enjoyed, allowing them to compete for municipal medical posts and for others dependent on administrative bodies. This matter has given rise to various debates in the press, among which the series of articles published in the Diário de Notícias of Funchal in January and February 1896 deserves special mention. Doctors trained at our School have always practised freely in many places on the mainland, in the Azores and in the overseas provinces, and also in foreign countries. Many of them not only obtained municipal medical posts but also found positions in the army and navy, bringing no discredit on the School that trained them and standing shoulder to shoulder with doctors trained at the higher schools of our country. Various attempts were made at different times to abolish the Funchal Medical School, all of them fruitless, until it was finally abolished by the following decree:

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Article 1. The Medical-Surgical School of Funchal is abolished. Sole paragraph: the staff of the School thus abolished shall be placed on the supernumerary list. Article 2. All legislation to the contrary is revoked. Given at the Palace of the Republic on 11 November 1910. António José de Almeida.