
Professor Carvalho Araújo, Retired Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon and former Director of the Infectious Diseases Service of Santa Maria Hospital (1968-1992) died on 11 September 2017, aged 95.
Infectious diseases are in mourning due to the death of Professor Fernando Abreu de Carvalho Araújo on 11 September 2017 at 95 years of age, due to complications related to renal disease. In Portugal, the identity of infectious diseases owes a great deal to Professor Carvalho Araújo. He was responsible for the recognition of the creation of the Portuguese Association for Infectious Diseases (now the Portuguese Association for Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology) and of the Portuguese Journal of Infectious Diseases (1985), as its first Director, by the Council of Specialty Physicians.
Professor Fernando Abreu de Carvalho Araújo graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon in 1950, and completed his PhD in 1965 with a thesis titled “Contribution for the study of toxoplasmosis in Portugal”. In this work, and for the first time, he advanced the possibility of the existence of a form of resistance to Toxoplasma gondii, which was identified later, and he also confirmed, for the first time, a case of toxoplasmosis acquired in Portugal.
At the time of his PhD, Professor Carvalho Araújo was 1st assistant of the Subject Infectious-Contagious Diseases Clinic of the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon. In 1968, he was appointed Director of the Infectious Diseases Service of Santa Maria Hospital. In 1970 he became Assistant Professor and in 1973 he underwent a public examination to obtain the title of Associate Professor of Internal Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, having later on become Full Associate Professor and, finally, Full Professor of the Faculty.
Professor Carvalho Araújo was a follower of the French School of Infectious Diseases and the various visits he made to some French scientific research and medical care establishments in Infectious Diseases, namely to the Institut Pasteur in Paris (Department of Virus Research and Department of Mycology Studies), to the Claude Bernard Hospital, “the largest French bastion known throughout Europe in the fight against infectious diseases”, to the Saint Vincent de Paul Hospital, and later to the Resuscitation Service of Claude Bernard Hospital enabled him to shape plans for a model of an autonomous Infectious Disease Service able to treat patients with common infectious diseases in the 1970s. It was a Herculean work that only achieved the objectives intended due to the vision and work capacity of Professor Carvalho Araújo – remodelling the Archive and the Library, which was enriched with the main books and journals on infectious diseases, creation of the External Consultation of the Infectious Diseases Service “which represented an economy of more than 1,000 days/beds/year”, officialising the Internal Urgency and setting up the much needed Intensive Treatment Unit for Infectious Patients, which was named after him in recognition of the effort, dedication, spirit of dynamism, and high perception of the reality of the Grand Master of Infectiology in Portugal. He also laid the foundations for the creation of the Laboratory of Applied Microbiology at the Infectious-Contagious Diseases Service. His interest in toxoplasmosis motivated the establishment of a Toxoplasmosis Study Centre by the Ministry of Health and Assistance in 1969, which was housed, by agreement with Dr Arnaldo Sampaio, at the time Health Chief Inspector, in the facilities of the future Dr Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute.
Professor Carvalho Araújo left behind a vast number of published works, in addition to having created, in 1968, the magazine Medicina Hoje “for recent graduate doctors and those who live far from the large medical centres”. At the time, it was the only medical information journal published in Portugal, containing exclusively original scientific works by Portuguese doctors.
In this journal, the following doctors, among others, published articles: Ducla Soares, Arsénio Cordeiro, Fernando de Pádua, Celestino da Costa, Jorge Horta, Gouveia Monteiro, Ramos Lopes, Thomé Villar, Armando Porto, Girão do Amaral, Sales Luís, Palma Carlos, Pinto Correia, Norton Brandão, Mário Marques, Nazaré Vaz, Carneiro Chaves, Balcão Reis, Carneiro de Moura, Óscar Candeias, and Rui Proença. All of them great figures of Medical Education in Portugal.
One of the most ambitious projects of Professor Carvalho Araújo was the creation of a “Private Research Centre for the Infectious-Contagious Diseases Clinic of the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon”, a project that came to fruition 40 years later with the creation of the Clinical Research and Integrated Treatment of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis Infection Centre at the Infectious Diseases Service of Santa Maria Hospital in 2011.
Professor Carvalho Araújo was praised by the Chief Nurse of the Civil Hospitals of Lisbon in 1953 for his services at Santa Marta Hospital and by the Director General for Health in 1968 for his collaboration during the outbreak of typhoid fever in Alhandra.
Professor Carvalho Araújo was always grateful to all those who directed and guided him in his training, but he never forgot those who shared their professional life with him in the Contagious Diseases Service, later called Infectious Diseases Service, which he directed for 24 years (1968-1992). In this regard, he said: “I am proud to have such an excellent team, a united, conscious and enlightened team, highly specialized and extremely efficient, which gives me great satisfaction to work with”.
Professor Carvalho Araújo was governed by very rigorous ethical and professional principles in the performance of his medical and teaching duties and, in connection with his resignation as a lecturer at the School of Nursing of Santa Maria Hospital in 1970, he affirmed: “At this point, I must say that one of biggest reasons for resigning from my functions, was my almost frontal opposition to the anachronistic programme imposed on me year after year and my disagreement, as a matter of principle, with the system of payment for the services actually rendered, a payment that is not very dignifying for those who teach, and much less for the institution that practices it”.
All those of us who benefitted from the teaching and familiarity of Professor Carvalho Araújo owe him a feeling of gratitude and the certainty that the recognition of Infectious Diseases in Portugal is due to his legacy, which we try to honour.
Francisco Antunes
Specialist in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine
Institute of Environmental Health
Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon
Professor Carvalho Araújo, Retired Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon and former Director of the Infectious Diseases Service of Santa Maria Hospital (1968-1992) died on 11 September 2017, aged 95. Infectious diseases are in mourning due to the death of Professor Fernando Abreu de Carvalho Araújo on 11 September 2017 at 95 years of age, due to complications related to renal disease. In Portugal, the identity of infectious diseases owes a great deal to Professor Carvalho Araújo. He was responsible for the recognition of the creation of the Portuguese Association for Infectious Diseases […]