José Pedro Sousa Dias

Em 1975, quando teve lugar a independência das últimas grandes colónias, o governo português decidiu manter de pé a principal estrutura estatal de investigação colonial, com o objetivo de funcionar como um instrumento de cooperação e diplomacia, mudando a sua designação para Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical. Desligado da sua missão primitiva e com uma estrutura muito pesada e onerosa para as suas novas atribuições, em 2015 este Instituto acabou por ser extinto e incorporado na Universidade de Lisboa. Neste processo, a Universidade integrou um apreciável património, incluindo coleções histórico-científicas e um Jardim Botânico Tropical, que passou a ser gerido conjuntamente com o Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência (MUHNAC)/Museus da Universidade de Lisboa. O presente artigo apresenta as principais linhas de orientação para a preservação e valorização deste património no desenvolvimento um programa de atividades científicas, educativas, culturais e lúdicas, no âmbito da difusão da cultura sobre a história e memória da ciência e da técnica nos descobrimentos, na expansão e na colonização portuguesas.

The Instituto Bacteriológico was founded in Lisbon in 1892, being the main institution for medical research and health­care in Portugal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, the Institute laid the basis for the general acceptance of laboratory medicine in medical practice in Lisbon and provinces and, foremost, was pioneer in providing a home for the first generation of medical experimental researchers in the country. Originally designed as a facility for the production of rabies vaccines, based on the Louis Pasteur’s newly developed technique, the Institute rapidly acquired other functions, embracing the manufacture of anti­diphtheria serum, BCG and other biological products, and ensuring the hospital treatment of diphtheria patients. In 1895, it was granted the title of Royal Bacteriological Institute and architectural enlargement plans were designed. The complex — built between 1898 and 1900 — was a major investment, occupying the entire quarter of the old Convento de Santana. The new premises were very close to Hospital de S. José, Lisbon’s major hospital, and the planned new building for the Medical School. The construction was only completed after the death of the Institute’s first director, Luís da Câmara Pestana (1863­1899), who died at the age of 36 under rather dramatic circumstances, after contracting plague in an autopsy procedure during the 1899 Oporto epidemics. Heralded as a martyr of science, his eponym was linked to the name of the Institute, in the political turmoil surrounding the epidemics. Aníbal Bettencourt (1868­1930) was his successor. During his directorship, he was very active in creating conditions to attract young physicians interested in different aspects of medical research to the Institute. Following the 1910 Republican Revolution, the Institute was annexed, first to the Medical School and then to the Faculty of Medicine. Simultaneously, most of the non­bacteriologists that worked in the Institute during the previous decade migrated to the new histology, physiology, pharmacology, and other research laboratories in the nearby Faculty of Medicine, sponsored by the re­founded Universidade de Lisboa. The Instituto Bacteriológico Câmara Pestana remained mostly unaltered until 2009, when the majority of the terrain was transferred to Universidade Nova de Lisboa; however, Universidade de Lisboa retains the property of the so­called historical building that includes the main research and educational laboratories, library and old director’s offices. Projects are under discussion to re­open and revitalize the building, such as a health­‐oriented branch of the University’s Museums.