The Student Association of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon is to be congratulated as this year it celebrates its 105th Anniversary.
It was far away on 30 September 1914 that a group of students from the Faculty of Medicine decided to found the Lisbon Medical Students Association, as it was then designated. Since its inception, it aimed to defend the interests of students both in terms of academic life and in society in general, and is still considered one of the oldest student associations in Portugal.
For more than a century of existence, AEFML has witnessed and participated in several important and troubled moments, both academically and at national level.
Although during the first decades the functioning of this Student Association was quite embryonic, it is true that there were regular meetings when topics such as university reform and public health care in Portugal in the early twentieth century were debated. In order to disseminate these concepts, the leaflets: “Take Care of Children”, “On behalf of Food and Hygiene” and “Against Syphilis” were published by the students under the guidance of Associative Leader Henrique Barahona Fernandes, distributed for free and quite well accepted.
Through cooperation with the Student Association of the Faculty of Law, the first Portuguese conference on Euthanasia was organized, where the medical-legal implications of this practice were addressed. In April 1930, the journal “Contemporary Medicine” published the speech given by Professor Barahona Fernandes at that conference.
On 5 February 1929, the Lisbon Medical Students Association held the first edition of the “Medical Evening” at Politeama Theatre. As a vaudeville and using the popular proverb as the title “What Burns… Heals!”, this annual initiative continues to the present day.
Over the next few decades, AEFML followed the country's historical events, often as a result of international politics, such as the economic depression in America, Hitler's rise to power, and the onset of World War II that led to true anarchy in the economic context, not only in Portugal but also worldwide, in addition to the limitations originated by Salazar’s regime.
Faced with these facts, AEFML participated in cultural movements and was an active part in student struggles over several generations, claiming for syllabus reforms and changed education policies, becoming a voice of revolt regarding political events in the country. Due to the existing political and social tensions, increasingly frequent clandestine and contestation meetings were held and the faculties became targets of police repression and persecution.
Events such on 30 April 1931, are examples of these persecutions of FMUL students, when Professor Egas Moniz, then its Director, barred the entrance to the Faculty to the police forces sent at the request of the Ministry of Public Education to calm down “rebel” students who speak out against measures of this ministry. Egas Moniz acted quickly, opening FMUL’s doors and urging the rebellious students to flee the soldiers and their rifles. There were several injuries as a result. Professor Egas Moniz was arrested and placed in Limoeiro jail, but he was released a few hours later and the event was "forgotten".
In 1946, while holding a contesting meeting, the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon was surrounded and attacked by the political police. The only refuge found was a class simulated by Professor Luís Hernâni Dias Amado. When the police entered the room, the Professor's natural authority set aside any doubts about what is going on there: it was indeed a genuine Histology class. It is thus in this unusual way that some law students had an extracurricular Histology class in the 1946/1947 academic year.
Still in the 1960s, the entrance to AEFML was closed by the political police. At another time, as a consequence of the commitment shown by the medical students' associativism, the Student Association space was in serious risk of being handed over to Mocidade Portuguesa (Portuguese Youth). Also during this period, another episode occurred. Due to their cooperation with the insurgent students, several prestigious doctors were expelled from FMUL during the year of 1947, including Celestino da Costa, Dias Amado, Pulido Valente and Fernando Fonseca.
But it was the floods that took place in Lisbon at the end of 1967 that turned out to be one of the most remarkable events for AEFML, which all participants never forgot.
The Lisbon Floods in 1967
The floods that occurred in the Lisbon region and the Tagus Valley in November 1967 are considered to be one of the three greatest tragedies in Portugal, only comparable to the 1755 earthquake and the 1803 alluvium in Funchal. Considered to be the most dramatic in our country in the last 50 years, they were essentially marked by the high number of deaths.
Geographically, the floods that hit Lisbon and the surrounding regions were the result of a depression system formed in the region of the Madeira archipelago which, on 24 November, started to move northeast towards the Lisbon region, joining the frontal system that preceded a maritime polar air mass carried in the circulation of an anticyclone centred in the north of the Azores, moving with strong wind.
This meteorological phenomenon took place between 7 pm on 25 and 1 am on 26 November 1967 in the Greater Lisbon area (Lisbon, Loures, Odivelas, Vila Franca de Xira and Alenquer), where precipitation reached 1/5 of the annual total. The floods caused a very high death toll, thousands of homeless people, and countless of the precarious dwellings were destroyed.
In Lisbon, the area where it rained the most was in Monte do Estoril. However, it was where there were fewer deaths. It was impossible to say where the Tagus ended and Lisbon began.
The small village of Quintas, in Castanheira do Ribatejo, was the hardest hit. Out of 156 inhabitants, 90 lost their lives in this tragedy. The losses were around $ 3 million (prices at the time).
According to studies, this calamity was a consequence of several constraints. While on the one hand there was a huge and unusual precipitation at that time, on the other there had been an extraordinary population explosion, with the consequent increase of housing area in the region in the early 1960s, most illegal and poorly built.
In addition to the enormous territorial lack of planning that had led to the increased aggravation of the potential danger of flooding, there was also increased vulnerability resulting from the improper occupation of floodwaters and, sometimes, of smaller watercourse beds. In addition, the land, although not saturated, did not have sufficient infiltration capacity due to various factors such as: abandonment of traditional farming practices, sealing of land and drainage in artificial canals, creation of artificial bottlenecks, insufficient and inadequate use of rain draining systems due to population growth. It is further assumed that there was a possibility that a leptospirosis outbreak occurred.
These floods were marked mainly by the high number of victims. Whereas the first reports indicated two hundred dead, three days later the number had multiplied to more than double.
Portugal was at that time governed by a dictatorial regime headed by Salazar, which repressed freedom of expression, prohibited the existence of political parties and elections, arrested its opponents and used censorship in the media. On 29 November, it used this "weapon" to enforce the suspension of the public count, 462 victims being announced as the official number. However, the number of fatalities is not known, estimates pointing to around seven hundred.
The written press also issued some guidelines and prohibitions on words and pictures to be published that could shock the population. Article titles could not exceed 1/2-page width. It was expressly forbidden to mention student activities. These attitudes led some students to drop out of the degrees they were taking and do something else. For example, Diana Andringa, who is currently a journalist, in 1967 was in year 2 of the medical degree and collaborated as a writer for the “Student Solidarity” newsletter. Given the conditions imposed by the government regarding the publication of news in the newspapers, she gave up and decided to devote herself to journalism.
The situation was so severe that it affected a large number of people. The poor and disorganized assistance systems in place failed to respond to numerous requests and victims’ assistance had to be provided through individual or organizational initiatives.
At first, and due to the vast material damage, there was an immediate need to distribute essential goods, such as water, medicines, clothing, food and communications in the area affected, which was done by the populations and the army.
Shortly after the 1967 floods, a rapid relief action plan was carried out under the responsibility of a Central Coordinating Commission in the Student Association of the Higher Technical Institute (AEIST), managed by the Catholic University Youth (JUC) and with the support of several Student Associations, among them the Student Association of the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon, which had large student support.
Although this was not the first time that university students showed solidarity in calamity situations, they were not technically prepared and felt powerless in the face of the tragedy. Already at the end of 1961, the university students, through their associations under the coordination of the Law School Student Association, supported a movement to help the reconstruction of the fishermen's wooden houses in Cova do Vapor, as a result of the floods that had occurred.
With the 1967 floods, there was a "wave" of solidarity that gathered 6,000 students, organized in various groups, which lasted approximately two weeks. It is estimated that 44,000 hours were spent helping victims. The authorities were unhappy with such help and sought to discredit it through the Public Security Police.
The support given by the university students’ solidarity movements was unquestionable and crucial.
In the days following the floods, the activity of the medical students was tireless. The students’ room was adapted to collect children and primary care was provided.
During this period, several proximity actions were also carried out, seeking to promote, as far as possible, more hygiene and immunization for the populations. It required clearing and cleaning the houses that had stood, the removal of mud that often hid the debris of adults, children and animals, accompanying primary teachers on health awareness activities, and, at the same time, information was disseminated among the population about what had happened, as it had no idea of the magnitude of the tragedy.
The newspaper Comércio do Funchal also described in one of the December 1967 issues the various actions carried out by students, future doctors “…mass vaccination against typhoid fever; installation of clinical units; health information for the population, separation of people most at risk of getting typhoid fever; prophylactic population survey, an idea that was also approved by the DGS; organization of day care centres with proper medical and child care…”.
Throughout the country, groups of students were formed that either organized donation gathering or were included in aid groups for the affected populations. The Student Association of the Faculty of Medicine also provided cultural initiatives, a fine art exhibition with students' own works, a jazz concert by a US Navy squadron and several conferences, one of them about Beja painter Francisco Relógio, which originated an article by Professor Daniel Sampaio, published in the Association’s Bulletin under the title “Francisco Relógio or the Lost Time”.
After 1967, with the movements of solidarity to the victims of the floods organized by the university students, nothing was like before. The students became aware and publicized the misery, the lack of economic and social conditions, the lack of sanity and the lack of security in which most of the Portuguese population lived.
The students' testimonies were critical and disclosed as causes of the magnitude of the tragedy, the lack of preparation and disorganization of the Government's social and health organizations, and not as a consequence of natural causes (the heavy rainfall provoking the fatality and the suffering), as the dictatorial regime wanted to be believed, in an attempt to camouflage the tragedy.
In order to publicize the work done by the students in exposing the causes and consequences related to the tragedy, the Student Information Associations Secretariat of Lisbon published the Student Solidarity newsletter. This newsletter was an editorial success, with a circulation of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out in one morning.
The 1967 floods became the motto for university students to inform themselves and to become politically aware, to rebel, intervene, get together and act together, in an attempt to break the siege of censorship.
At that time a new, more participative mentality arose, new topics such as access to education and the feminine condition were discussed, with new slogans, and they also spoke out against the colonial war that had begun a few years earlier.
References
FML Bulletin, no. 41 (May/June), 1989 : 1-9
https://www.aefml.pt/historia-da-aefml
https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/34268/1/1263.pdf
http://analisesocial.ics.ul.pt/documentos/1325586077J8zDR6sq3Ep56EE1.pdf
https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/4707/4/021 Vis%C3%B5esO%20Activismo%
20Estudantil%20no%20IST_12-10-14.pdf
https://www.aefml.pt/historia-da-aefml
https://www.aefml.pt/historia-da-aefml
https://aeist.pt/downloads/Exposicao/%285%29Relacoes-com-a-sociedade-compressed.pdf
https://rr.sapo.pt/cheias-1967/
Lurdes Barata
Library and Information Area
Editorial Team
