Dr. Domingos Agostinho Felizardo de Sousa

Dr. Domingos Agostinho Felizardo de Sousa - Natural de Gaurá Vaddó.

Ele era filho de António Bernardo Sousa e de Leopoldina Cândida Especiosade Purificação e Sousa, nasceu em 6 de Junho de 1859 e faleceu em 23 de Abril de 1919, em 116-1.o, Rua Sá da Bandeira, Porto, Portugal. Ele era irmão do Padre Pio Simão Francisco Sousa, Superior das Missões em Bengala. Ele estudou em Calangute, em seguida ele ingressou no Liceu Nacional em Pangim, onde ele estudou desde 1870 a 1878 e foi ao Porto. Ele era médico, matemático, filólogo, crítico das realidades sociais. Na política económica ele teve polémica com Andrade Corvo. Por isso, ele deixou Lisboa e foi ao Porto, onde ele trabalhou com Dr. Hintze Ribeiro.

Como aluno de Medicina, ele foi catedrático de Economia Política na Academia Politécnica do Porto, onde ele passou com louros académicos, e foi nomeado Professor da Escola Médica do Porto. Ele se especializou em doenças urinárias e sifilíticas. Quando ele estava no laboratório bacteriológico do Hospital de Guyon, em Paris, ele se encontrou com Dr. António Maria da Cunha, de Arporá, fundador de Heraldo. Pensando que ele era um Francês, ele lhe falou francês, mas depois deu com o facto de que ele era Goês, seu conterrâneo, Trocaram o frances pelo portufues e foram tomar um café ao Boulevard Saint-Martin. Em aluno ele escreveu “Orthographia Phonética,confirmadapela linguística e biologia” (1881), em polémica contra o Conselheiro J. M. Latino Coelho e Dr. Thomázde Carvalho, referida pelo Deputado Dr. Barbosa de Leão,relatorda Comissão Portuense desta Reforma. Ele escreveu também uma teoria sobre o Ritmo Cardíaco (1888), defendida posteriormente pelo fisiólogo François Franke desenvolvida pelo Prof. Ricardo Jorge. Este trabalho foi a base da invenção do electrocardiograma. Ele escreveu “La Théorie de l’Atomicité et la loi périodique de M. Mendelégeff” (1887). Enquanto aluno de Medicina, ele escreveu a sua tese “A Sensação Visual. Estudo de Psycho-Physiologia“, na faculdade da Escola Médica do Porto em 1885. Naquelas Alturas ele era lente de Economia Industrial e Sócio Correspondente do Instituto de Coimbra. Ele escreveu também "transformação das fórmulas químicas,de equivalentes e vice-versa".

Ele faleceu no Porto em 23 de Abril de 1919.

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It is one of the signs of the times that men today know more and more about less and less. A doctor is just a doctor and, even in his own field, he specialises in a very restricted branch of medicine or surgery. Rare is the medical man who can claim an equal mastery over the other fields of knowledge. This was not so a generation ago and in more distant past, as we see from the personalities who adorned the public life of this land and distinguished themselves in medicine as well as in politics, economics, philosophy, philology et cetera. One such distinguished personality was Dr. Domingos Agostinho Felizardo de Sousa.

He belonged to the pleiade of youths who shone in the academic circles of Goa in the seventies of the second last century.

After his secondary education, Agostinho de Sousa sailed for the then metropolis for higher studies in Lisboa. But, following a heated controversy on the burning politico-economic issue of the day, he decided to go to Oporto where he joined the Medical Faculty.

From the foregoing incident it may be concluded that Agostinho de Sousa, though a student, could hold his own against more mature men. He proved it again in Oporto. The chair of political economy in the Polytechnic school fell vacant and Agostinho de Sousa, student of the Medical Faculty, was chosen in preference to several other candidates holding diplomas. Thus Agostinho de Sousa, became a professor while yet a student.

But his brilliant talent had still other laurels to conquer. In the age of atomic research, it may come as a surprise to many that this brilliant Goan medico published as far back as 1880, a treatise entitled "La Théorie de l’Atomicité et la loi périodique de M. Mendelégeff". This scientific work won him great fame in foreign circles. In 1888, he published, his celebrated "Theory of Cardiac Rhythm", which earned him recognition of such eminent physiologists as François Franke and others.

Meanwhile, Agostinho de Sousa had a mark in a different sphere. In 1881, the question of phonetic spelling of the Portuguese language came to the fore. The Oporto Committee stood foursquare for a simplification of spelling, where the Lisbon Academy of Sciences was equally staunch in the defence of the traditional spelling. The latter proffered the authority of such eminent men of Letters as Latino Coelho and Tomás de Carvalho. Undaunted by the formidable adversaries, Agostinho de Sousa entered the arena of controversy and won the day. It speaks much for the high academic level at which the controversy was conducted that Agostinho de Sousa dedicated his book entitled "The Phonetic Orthography Confirmed by Linguistics and Biology", to his opponents.

Even though engaged in such non-medical matters as economics and linguistics, Agostinho de Sousa did not neglect medicine. He was much sought as a specialist in dermatology and in the diseases of the urinary tract. Had it not been for his own reluctance, he might have been a Professor of the Medical Faculty of Oporto.

A monarchist always, Agostinho de Sousa, made no secret of his horror at the barbarous regicide of 1908. When the Republic was established two years later, he forebored the darkest future for the Nation. It cut his patriotic heart to the quick that the country should have fallen into chaos and he sadly expressed his fear that someday a foreign committee would rule over Portugal.

This presage came all bit true when the League of Nations demanded that its own committee should supervise the expending of a loan which the Portuguese Government was asking. Fortunately the nation was spared this ignominy by the present regime which found a financial wizard in Salazar.

Dr. Domingos Agostinho Felizardo de Sousa died in Oporto, in 1919.