News Report / Profile
On Books and Medicine over the Last Hundred Years: a Brief and Overall Reflection
The period in which we live is witnessing the development of the new information technologies at a dizzying pace, in a manner that is substantially transforming not only the traditional paradigms of access to information and the methods and forms of communication, but also the very habits of life and organisation of thought.
This development has been so striking in our work and in our lives that we end up undervaluing and forgetting previous stages, with it becoming necessary to recall them in ways that sometimes seem like a longing for the past or sound like old-fashioned things. And for these, as we know, we don’t have any time.
Yet in a year like this one it will be difficult, even for those who are most forgetful, to escape the eagerness for commemoration. This year marks the centenary of the Republic, and in our more restricted sense a century has gone by not since the founding of the Portuguese university, which in fact dates back to the XIII century, but since the important education reforms that the Republic brought and which also included the university.
This brief reflection on the subject in the heading precisely takes us back to the early days of the 1st Portuguese Republic, about which a well-known historian stated that it was not a regime but a “state of things”. This “state of things” brought with it the ideas that had inspired the French Revolution over a century earlier. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, also in access, which was intended to be open and free, to teaching education and culture, no longer a privilege of the elites.
Books are, par excellence, the objects that we freely associate with culture, although this, in the broadest sense, is not restricted to its scientific and literary aspects. Although we are not normally likely to notice what is always present and close to us, there are plenty of reasons to reflect upon the role of the book, and, more broadly, that which we might call the printed object: books, but also the written press and not only that. If the book represented the possibility of storing knowledge in a “perennial”, the printed book that appeared at the end of the XV century gave a tremendous impulse to science, including medicine, and to the divulging of scientific knowledge.
The press, and particularly scientific periodicals, has always been associated to divulging scientific knowledge over the last century; they are an integral part of and are greatly important in the scientific medium. They make it possible to share experiences and be constantly updated. This is so much the case that they impose upon the members of this community the urgency to publish in order to guarantee some type of recognition: publish or perish, it is said. Egas Moniz published over 300 scientific works in his lifetime. If, as the Hippocratic aphorism states, life is short, the truth is that books can always outlive their authors. It is not surprising that they dedicate so much attention to publication.
A hundred years ago the book was still somewhat of an object of use for the elites. Not only possessing one, but using one, given that the majority of the population was still illiterate and kept away from education for several reasons, such as political, economic, social and due to mentalities.
Nowadays the book is widely present in our houses, although, as scholars in the matter tell us, possessing one does not mean reading it. At the time we are referring to, the book would only be available to many people in libraries, which were yesterday, like today, a place for study and reflection. The students would have particularly the manuscript copy of the lessons by their masters, the copybooks, later on the single books; mutatis mutandis, some aspects of this reality have changed little over decades; reading does not mean one can forego attending classes, having contact with and lessons from the masters. In the case of medicine clinical practice can be added. But the printed object has become vulgarised. Possessing it, using it, accessing it – also in that other form, about which we have already mentioned the “culture of the photocopy”, that a culture of the digital or of downloading may have replaced, apparently with an immense advantage: storage capacity, portability and updating.
And what can one say of the role of the book nowadays in the context of medicine? Is it not paradoxical that the evolution to which we referred at the beginning is accompanied by questionings, hesitations and concerns on the part not only of most sceptical but also of the student who is now starting out at the university. In their activities, the students, like the teachers or researchers, use both paper and electronic resources (PDAs, laptops, articles in electronic format, electronic books, etc.).
Medicine has also had its role, alongside other sciences, in the evolution of the book, in particular the scientific book, namely with the development of the techniques of scientific illustration. Today, to give just one example, electronic atlases of anatomy now have exceptional quality and are greatly used by medicine students.
The digital is gaining ground. Today the great majority of libraries are investing more money in digital resources than in the catalogue. An increasing number of publishers are making their resources available on open access. This may be the future, free and open availability of veritable galaxies of information on digital repositories, an example of which in Portugal is RCAAP - Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal.
But it should be believed that libraries will remain, even if the term changes, accompanying the change in practices. Indeed, Americans, who are particularly interested in futurology, indicate the science of information as one of the areas with a guaranteed future, alongside, for example, geriatrics, to give one example among the medical sciences.
Of course there are no libraries without resources. In times of crisis, some people are precisely thinking about cutting in expenses in this field. But what will become of research if this field is deprived of resources? There has never been the tradition in Portugal, like in the already mentioned USA, of it being the directive councils, the teachers and the authors taking on the investment, on a private level and often involving many millions, in the catalogue of the library of their institution. In fact we believe that it would not be a good replacement for the necessary investment on the part of the state, which has in the meantime abandoned the universities to their scant resources.
Excusing the cliché, only the congregation of efforts within the institution and outside of it may guarantee a better future for the coming generations, which necessarily involves understanding the different phases of the path that has led us to here.
Illustrations:
p. 1: Current Faculty of Medical Sciences of the New University of Lisbon building; built from scratch for the faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, receiving the XV Lisbon International Medicine Congress, 1906.
p. 2: Official inauguration of the XV Lisbon International Medicine Congress in 1906 at the Lisbon Geographical Society.
p. 3: Title page of the work Encheiridium anatomicum et pathologicum: in quo, ex naturali constitutione partium, recessus a naturali statu demonstratur / Joanne Riolano Filio. - Lugduni Batauorum : Ex Officinis Adriani Wyngaerden, Habitantis e Regione Academiae, 1649
André Rodrigues
CDI-Library / Preservation and Conservation Nucleus
andresilva@fm.ul.pt
This development has been so striking in our work and in our lives that we end up undervaluing and forgetting previous stages, with it becoming necessary to recall them in ways that sometimes seem like a longing for the past or sound like old-fashioned things. And for these, as we know, we don’t have any time.
Yet in a year like this one it will be difficult, even for those who are most forgetful, to escape the eagerness for commemoration. This year marks the centenary of the Republic, and in our more restricted sense a century has gone by not since the founding of the Portuguese university, which in fact dates back to the XIII century, but since the important education reforms that the Republic brought and which also included the university.
This brief reflection on the subject in the heading precisely takes us back to the early days of the 1st Portuguese Republic, about which a well-known historian stated that it was not a regime but a “state of things”. This “state of things” brought with it the ideas that had inspired the French Revolution over a century earlier. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, also in access, which was intended to be open and free, to teaching education and culture, no longer a privilege of the elites.
Books are, par excellence, the objects that we freely associate with culture, although this, in the broadest sense, is not restricted to its scientific and literary aspects. Although we are not normally likely to notice what is always present and close to us, there are plenty of reasons to reflect upon the role of the book, and, more broadly, that which we might call the printed object: books, but also the written press and not only that. If the book represented the possibility of storing knowledge in a “perennial”, the printed book that appeared at the end of the XV century gave a tremendous impulse to science, including medicine, and to the divulging of scientific knowledge.
The press, and particularly scientific periodicals, has always been associated to divulging scientific knowledge over the last century; they are an integral part of and are greatly important in the scientific medium. They make it possible to share experiences and be constantly updated. This is so much the case that they impose upon the members of this community the urgency to publish in order to guarantee some type of recognition: publish or perish, it is said. Egas Moniz published over 300 scientific works in his lifetime. If, as the Hippocratic aphorism states, life is short, the truth is that books can always outlive their authors. It is not surprising that they dedicate so much attention to publication.
A hundred years ago the book was still somewhat of an object of use for the elites. Not only possessing one, but using one, given that the majority of the population was still illiterate and kept away from education for several reasons, such as political, economic, social and due to mentalities.
Nowadays the book is widely present in our houses, although, as scholars in the matter tell us, possessing one does not mean reading it. At the time we are referring to, the book would only be available to many people in libraries, which were yesterday, like today, a place for study and reflection. The students would have particularly the manuscript copy of the lessons by their masters, the copybooks, later on the single books; mutatis mutandis, some aspects of this reality have changed little over decades; reading does not mean one can forego attending classes, having contact with and lessons from the masters. In the case of medicine clinical practice can be added. But the printed object has become vulgarised. Possessing it, using it, accessing it – also in that other form, about which we have already mentioned the “culture of the photocopy”, that a culture of the digital or of downloading may have replaced, apparently with an immense advantage: storage capacity, portability and updating.
And what can one say of the role of the book nowadays in the context of medicine? Is it not paradoxical that the evolution to which we referred at the beginning is accompanied by questionings, hesitations and concerns on the part not only of most sceptical but also of the student who is now starting out at the university. In their activities, the students, like the teachers or researchers, use both paper and electronic resources (PDAs, laptops, articles in electronic format, electronic books, etc.).
Medicine has also had its role, alongside other sciences, in the evolution of the book, in particular the scientific book, namely with the development of the techniques of scientific illustration. Today, to give just one example, electronic atlases of anatomy now have exceptional quality and are greatly used by medicine students.
The digital is gaining ground. Today the great majority of libraries are investing more money in digital resources than in the catalogue. An increasing number of publishers are making their resources available on open access. This may be the future, free and open availability of veritable galaxies of information on digital repositories, an example of which in Portugal is RCAAP - Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal.
But it should be believed that libraries will remain, even if the term changes, accompanying the change in practices. Indeed, Americans, who are particularly interested in futurology, indicate the science of information as one of the areas with a guaranteed future, alongside, for example, geriatrics, to give one example among the medical sciences.
Of course there are no libraries without resources. In times of crisis, some people are precisely thinking about cutting in expenses in this field. But what will become of research if this field is deprived of resources? There has never been the tradition in Portugal, like in the already mentioned USA, of it being the directive councils, the teachers and the authors taking on the investment, on a private level and often involving many millions, in the catalogue of the library of their institution. In fact we believe that it would not be a good replacement for the necessary investment on the part of the state, which has in the meantime abandoned the universities to their scant resources.
Excusing the cliché, only the congregation of efforts within the institution and outside of it may guarantee a better future for the coming generations, which necessarily involves understanding the different phases of the path that has led us to here.
Illustrations:
p. 1: Current Faculty of Medical Sciences of the New University of Lisbon building; built from scratch for the faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, receiving the XV Lisbon International Medicine Congress, 1906.
p. 2: Official inauguration of the XV Lisbon International Medicine Congress in 1906 at the Lisbon Geographical Society.
p. 3: Title page of the work Encheiridium anatomicum et pathologicum: in quo, ex naturali constitutione partium, recessus a naturali statu demonstratur / Joanne Riolano Filio. - Lugduni Batauorum : Ex Officinis Adriani Wyngaerden, Habitantis e Regione Academiae, 1649
André Rodrigues
CDI-Library / Preservation and Conservation Nucleus
andresilva@fm.ul.pt