The Newsletter of FMUL continues to give the team responsible for its making quite a few reasons to be happy with our work, as well as invaluable opportunities for growth and learning.

It was the particular case of the present issue, which made us learn more about the Institute of Anatomy of FMUL. Our readers can now become familiar with the invaluable work that is carried out there, which, alongside clinical practice and research, is essential for medical education at this School. This was made possible thanks to extensive reporting that includes interviews with Professor Gonçalves Ferreira, Full Professor at FMUL, Dr Ivo Furtado (History of the Institute of Anatomy), Dr Lia Neto (Project on the Study of the Structure of the Human Brain Nucleus Accumbens), and with Dr Pedro Henriques, Anatomy Technician.

In this issue we also disclose the creation and inclusion of the Transfusion Medicine subject in the curricula of the Faculty, which was a pioneering initiative in the Integrated Master Degree in Medicine of FMUL.

As it has become customary, we also bring you information about a number of activities and events that make up the everyday life of this faculty, which it is our mission to reveal. Watch out, for example, for the article «The Library-IDC of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon -ULisboa», which tells us about a Library which, albeit with updated operating methodologies, is still the same that has housed and preserved several treasures, including a copy of one of the first editions of De Humani Corporis Fabrica, by Vesalius, a compelling work in History of Anatomy.

We also draw your attention to the Retirement Lecture of Professor Mário Andrea, whose full story we will share with you in the next issue of the Newsletter (8 November, Grand Auditorium of FMUL).

We conclude as we started, and all because of the vivid impression that we got from visiting the Institute of Anatomy and knowing more about its remarkable history. We felt compelled to read more about the topic, and we started with the book by best-selling American Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, which we strongly recommend. It is scientific dissemination using plain, but not light, language. Reading the book, like the visit, makes us respect even more the work conducted every day in the IA.

«For 2,000 years, cadavers – some willingly, some unwittingly – have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings… they have tested France’s guillotines, perceived as a ‘human’ alternative to hanging. They were present in the labs of Lenin’s embalmers helping them test the most innovative techniques. They have participated in committees of the US Congress (as names written on paper), advocating the mandatory use of seat belts. They have ridden the NASA Space Shuttle … and helped a student from Tennessee demystify human spontaneous combustion…
I find myself compelled to adopt the posture of Superman: it would be a shame to waste these powers, not use them for the good of humanity»

In Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers 
October 2013

andresilva@fm.ul.pt