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J. A. RIBEIRO AN. R. ACAD. NAC. FARM.

we have retained those interests. In fact, we believe we are working
toward that goal (and in that respect probably we do not differ from
most of our colleagues and predecessors). We hope, to show that we
are pointed in the right direction».

However, when in 1964 I did the disciplines of psychiatry and
neurology, I have an enormous deception, there was almost no
help for psychiatric patients. Psychiatric hospitals were filled with
«prisoners-like», more than patients. So, I decided to give up
psychiatry. After spending almost four compulsory years as a Medical
Doctor of the Portuguese Army, two of them in Mozambique, I
started in 1970 my first studies on Neuropharmacology. The
scientific question was: how brain interferes with autonomic
responses? The idea was to relate the cardiotonic effects of ouabain
on the brain, with its cardiovascular actions, in particular blood
pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). As HR is under the influence of
acetylcholine (ACh) we also measured by bioassay ACh release (27).

This sort of experimental approach had many limitations
resulting from being an in vivo investigation with many variables
involved and also because it was not possible to measure chemically
very tiny amounts of ACh. It was like being almost 2000 years back
in the History of Pharmacology. Being in the Real Academia Nacional
de Farmacia, I think it is appropriate to recall Galen (130-200 ac),
and his fluid theory of cerebral ventricles and nerves as vessels to
circulate fluids.

After two years of research under supervison of Fernando Peres-
Gomes, he decided to send me to Edinburgh to learn about the most
simple cholinergic synapse —the Neuromuscular Junction— as well
as to learn about measuring electrophysiologically ACh. Knowing
about this junction (synapse) one could start to know about central
nervous system synapses and in consequence to know about brain
functions and dysfunctions. This makes me fill closer to my initial
interest —psychiatry—. Also my readings of Egas Moniz (Nobel
Prize, 1949), who based upon Ramon y Cajal (Nobel Prize, 1906)
observations, wrote in 1953: «...Os neurónios encadeam-se e as
fibrilhas dos cilindraxis não se ligam em soldadura a outras células;
formam contactos através dos botões de Held, de forma variada [...]
Sobre esta noção anatómica, que devemos a Ramón y Cajal, concluí

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