Teresa Mota

Prevalence of chronic heart failure in Southwestern Europe: the EPICA study.

To estimate the prevalence of chronic heart failure (CHF) in mainland Portugal in 1998.

The diagnosis of heart failure in primary care: value of symptoms and signs.

The value of symptoms and signs in the diagnosis of CHF has rarely been tested in large numbers of patients in the community. The aim of this study was to evaluate the importance of symptoms, signs, and past medical history in the diagnosis of CHF in primary care.

Evaluation of the performance and concordance of clinical questionnaires for the diagnosis of heart failure in primary care

To validate and estimate the performance statistics and concordance of seven clinical questionnaires for the diagnosis of chronic heart failure (HF).

The value of the electrocardiogram and chest X-ray for confirming or refuting a suspected diagnosis of heart failure in the community

There is a common assumption that a normal ECG or a normal heart size on chest X‐ray virtually rules out a diagnosis of heart failure.

Aetiology, comorbidity and drug therapy of chronic heart failure in the real world: the EPICA substudy

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is common and is frequently managed by primary care physicians (PCPs). Despite the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines, standard treatments for CHF are frequently underutilised, particularly in primary care.

A Mere Shadow of an Institution: the Unhappy Story of the Portuguese Geological Survey (PGS) in the Period Between the Two World Wars

Summary In the period between the two World Wars, the Portuguese Geological Survey (Servicos Geologicos de Portugal: PGS) was legally dependent on the General Directorate of Mines and Geological Survey (Direccao Geral de Minas e Servicos Geologicos: GDMGS). Portugal was then living through troubled times, and the PGS struggled with financial problems and a lack of technical personnel. This situation did not allow the PGS to work properly as a scientific institution, and achieve its main function: the making and publication of geological maps and research papers.Summary In the period between the two World Wars, the Portuguese Geological Survey (Serviços Geológicos de Portugal: PGS) was legally dependent on the General Directorate of Mines and Geological Survey (Direcção Geral de Minas e Serviços Geológicos: GDMGS). Portugal was then living through troubled times, and the PGS struggled with financial problems and a lack of technical personnel. This situation did not allow the PGS to work properly as a scientific institution, and achieve its main function: the making and publication of geological maps and research papers.

Geology and religion in Portugal

This paper addresses the relationship between geology and religion in Portugal by focusing on three case studies of naturalists who produced original research and lived in different historical periods, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Whereas in non-peripheral European countries religious themes and even controversies between science and religion were dealt with by scientists and discussed in scientific communities, in Portugal the absence of a debate between science and religion within scientific and intellectual circles is particularly striking. From the historiographic point of view, in a country such as Portugal, where Roman Catholicism is part of the religious and cultural tradition, the influence of religion in all aspects of life has been either taken for granted by those less familiar with the national context or dismissed by local intellectuals, who do not see it as relevant to science. The situation is more complex than these dichotomies, rendering the study of this question particularly appealing from the historiographic point of view, geology being by its very nature a well-suited point from which to approach the theme. We argue that there is a long tradition of independence between science and religion, agnosticism and even atheism among local elites. Especially from the eighteenth century onwards, they are usually portrayed as enlightened minds who struggled against religious and political obscurantism. Religion—or, to be more precise, the Roman Catholic Church and its institutions—was usually identified with backwardness, whereas science was seen as the path to progress; consequently men of science usually dissociated their scientific production from religious belief.

The ups and downs of geology in Portugal: the Geological Survey, a historical perspective

Abstract The Geological Survey of Portugal was created in 1857 in the context of a liberal monarchy within a general policy implemented by the state to effectively control Portuguese territory. Throughout the nineteenth century, despite the structural problems faced by the Survey, it developed a consistent geological research programme, which led to the publication of two editions of the geological map of Portugal on a scale of 1:500 000, together with a considerable number of related scientific articles and monographs. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, however, the Survey and the production of maps were no longer a priority for the State and the institution progressively declined. Only with the establishment of the dictatorial regime known as the Estado Novo (New State) and, in particular, the implementation of its industrializing policies in the context of development plans, did the Geological Survey recover its original purpose of producing geological maps and assert itself as a reference scientific institution.

From the Museum to the Field: Geology Teaching in the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon

During the nineteenth century and up to the middle of the twentieth, fieldwork was absent from geology teaching in Portuguese higher teaching institutions. However, fieldwork is considered a distinctive characteristic of geological practice and training. This study presents an overall account of geology teaching in the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and in the former Polytechnic School and shows how fieldwork was introduced in the former. Carlos Teixeira (1910–1982), a professor of geology in the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, played a particular role in the process by creating a ‘school of geological fieldwork’ in the Portuguese Geological Survey. This school allowed the strengthening of the relations between the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and the Portuguese Geological Survey. It can also be perceived as a manoeuvre from the Portuguese geological community to ‘colonize’ the latter and assert its own interests.

Shaping Doctors and Society: The Portuguese Medical Press (1880–1926)

This article is an exploratory approach to the study of the Portuguese medical press, between the 1880s and 1926, that is, from the last decades of the liberal monarchy (1820–1910) to the end of the First Republic (1910–1926). Around 130 medical journals were identified so far. They were divided in groups according to the place of publication, and a typology was established based on two combined criteria—contents and affiliation. The weekly journal A Medicina Contemporânea will be used as a sample, mainly because it exemplifies in a single journal the dual purpose of the Portuguese medical press taken as whole. The establishment of the medical press coincided with the emergence of mass press and doctors’ engagement in laboratory-based medicine, and constituted an apparatus with two aims in mind: shaping doctors not only technically and scientifically, but also ideologically with the aim of creating a market for their profession, building up a medical community, and a social and cultural elite; shaping society and improving the ‘race’ by taking care of the bodies and minds of the Portuguese, organizing public opinion through ideological indoctrination, and influencing political decision-making to make a republic regime viable.