Exclusivism and truth of a “system” in the «medical philosophy» of Antonio D’Azevedo Maia (1851-1912). A history of physicians, for physicians

Antonio D’Azevedo Maia (1851 - 1912) is a clinical physician and professor. Graduated in Medicine at the age of 23, from 1875 he holds a Course of General Pathology for Forensic Medicine in the Surgery-Medical School of Porto. When 26, he appears among the “lentes substitutos” of the “corpo cathedratico”. In 1877, he marries the aristocrat Norberta Cândida Pereira de Sousa, who will give a son the next year, Adriano, subsequently a brilliant politician. In 1888, he performs the first oophorectomy for fibrosarcoma in the medical history of Portugal. In 1880, he is full professor of Physiology; in 1891 of Medical Clinics. In 1908, he appears among the “lentes jubilados” for the Medical Department. In 1897 he is among the constituent members of the Medicine and Surgery Society of Porto. Maia is the author of a “Dissertação Inaugural” (Porto, 1874), titled Nem o organicismo nem o vitalismo exclusivos são verdadeiros, a work of great scientific interest, for the worthiness of the theories argued and their “modernity”. There, two “medical systems” are covered: organicism and vitalism, to whom Maia reproaches the assumptions of exclusivity and truth. Further, he writes of an «organic evolution of medicine in the context of philosophy», considering «each system as the reflection of a dominant philosophical feature in a given epoch»; investigating on the «legitimacy of medical philosophy». So, the «golden dream of all systematics», «to simplify medicine» to «reduce it» to an «exact science», would be «to deny the scientific existence of biology». Here is presented the work of Maia, for the first time translated into Italian, aiming to present an original author to the scientific community, making “a history of physicians, for physicians”: a biographical history of medicine, providing preferred perspectives to study the scientific ideology of medical systems and of “medical science”, in general.