Professor Luís Silva Carvalho, Full Professor at the FMUL and Director of the Institute of Physiology, passed away on the 20th of October 2008.

Recalling Luís Silva Carvalho is not just an ethical and moral imperative, but also a duty of respect and admiration for one of the most relevant personalities in the life of the Faculty of Medicine. Luís Silva Carvalho continued a tradition of the teaching of physiology, his father having also been a full professor at our school, and he developed new paths for physiological research in a remarkable manner, namely in the field of the autonomic nervous system, where he was rightly considered to be a world authority. He gathered around him a group of enthusiastic disciples, he created contacts and collaborations with several different international groups, he began European courses in the fields of Physiology of the Autonomous Nervous System, which were a success, and he was able to incorporate new scientists and new areas of research into his institute, which he accompanied with interest and enthusiasm.

His institutional life was very important. He brilliantly and devotedly carried out function as Vice-Dean of the University of Lisbon during a difficult period of academic life, and he was a professor who was deeply committed to the renewal in his Faculty of Medicine, in which he participated with great interest, motivation and thoroughness.

As Director of the Faculty, I am the debtor of an immaculate loyalty, of a committed, critical yet decided collaboration, of a high institutional and academic sense, which was for all of us throughout different sectors of the government of the faculty a stimulus and an example.

His academic and pedagogical work will continue, and I am certain that the future of the Institute of Physiology will be a tribute to his memory and to his vision of a modern physiological science, open to the new challenges of time.

To his family and to his collaborators, the Faculty of Medicine presents sincere condolences and offers its admiration and respect for a great personality, scientist and illustrious academic.

Personally, we feel the loss of the friend who has departed, leaving an example of dedication and commitment in the modernization and progress of the Faculty of Medicine, which he always served in an exemplary manner, and for which he was decisive in difficult moments of the life of the institution.

José Fernandes e Fernandes