On the 4th of December 2009 Paulo de Souza Ramalho, Retired Professor of Ophthalmology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon passed away unexpectedly.

Paulo de Souza Ramalho was always a research enthusiast, and from the outset his name was connected to the Fluoresceinic Angiography of the Retina because he devoted himself to that technique in London and then to most of his life in Lisbon.

Recently one of his friends and colleagues in research in London praised his enthusiasm among young people in the field of research.

I think he would never have achieved everything he wanted, but without doubt he left a trail that even today remains and moves many of those who lived and worked alongside him.

I was his student, his assistant at the faculty, his collaborator in the Ophthalmology Service at Santa Maria Hospital, as well as his successor on the Direction of the Gama Pinto Institute, and it was with great pleasure I placed the frame containing his photograph on the wall devoted to the former directors of the institute.

He was a kindly but not easy man, and approached many fields of medicine, divulging ophthalmology in different areas, from the basic sciences to clinical sciences.

In his wife, Natália Ramalho, he always had a companion and support that was recognised by all, and whom I offer my respect.
He devoted most of his life to the Santa Maria Hospital and to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, and it must be acknowledged that he influenced many of those who headed Portuguese ophthalmology and some of those who followed him.

Professor António Castanheira Dinis
ancadis@gmail.com