Corino de Andrade
Authors: Tiago Villanueva
Journal: BMJ (2005)

While working at the Santo Antonio General Hospital in Porto (which had hired him as an unpaid neurologist to head the hospital's first department of neurology) Corino de Andrade noticed patients presenting with features that were characteristic of a peripheral neuropathy but did not fit any established clinical entity. During the next decade he came across dozens of similar cases and did extensive research on the epidemiology and pattern of transmission of this as yet unidentified disease.

In 1942 the autopsy of one of his patients revealed the presence of an amyloid substance in several body tissues. This led him to describe a new hereditary amyloid polyneuropathy—particularly prevalent not only in the fishing areas of northern Portugal, but also in coastal regions of other countries, including Japan and Sweden. This familial amyloid polyneuropathy type I (Portuguese) also became known as Corino de Andrade's disease.

Andrade's efforts were widely acknowledged by the international scientific community and attracted leading neurology gurus to Portugal. At a reception in Lisbon, Corino de Andrade met the editor of the British journal Brain, who expressed extreme interest in his research, prompting him to start writing his landmark 1952 paper.

Politically, Corino de Andrade was a bothersome opponent of the repressive fascist regime that ruled Portugal at the time. He belonged to the Movement of Democratic Unity, and advocated the free discussion of ideas and projects that could lead to a fair and developed society. Having tapped his phone, the political police arrested him in 1951, just when he had finished writing his paper. He was jailed on charges of “subversive activities” and secret links with the Communist Party. He remained in prison for several months, which slowed the publication of his paper. Nevertheless, he managed to review the paper while behind bars, and some of his colleagues submitted two short versions of the article to other international publications. He was released after a few months, possibly thanks to the diligence of an influential colleague and of his English second wife, Gwendoline, a teacher at the British Institute in Porto. The paper remains today the most cited Portuguese paper in the scientific literature (Brain 1952;75: 408-27 [PubMed]).​).




Figure 1




Mario Corino da Costa Andrade was born in 1906, in Moura, a small city near the Spanish border in the Portuguese province of Alentejo, and spent his infancy and childhood in nearby Beja. In 1923 he began his medical studies at the University of Lisbon, where his professor of neurology and psychiatry, Antonio Flores, influenced his career choice and encouraged him to train abroad.

He began specialising in neurology in Lisbon in 1929, and in 1931 he followed his professor's advice and travelled to Strasbourg to train at a clinic headed by the famous neurologist Barre. Much of his time was spent carrying out research on the meninges in the neuropathology laboratory, of which he would later become head. In 1933 he became the first neurological sciences researcher from outside France to win the prestigious Dejerine award.

After training in clinical neurology and neuropathology at Berlin's Max Planck Institute, Andrade returned to Strasbourg, where he was presented with several opportunities to develop his work in Europe and the United States. However, his father's health was deteriorating, and Corino de Andrade returned to Portugal in 1938. His father died shortly after his arrival, and Andrade was forced to forgo projects in France and Germany to support his mother and his sister.

Attempting to restart his career, he turned to Lisbon's Santa Marta Hospital, where he had worked previously and knew many doctors, including his former Professor, Antonio Flores. But despite his credentials, he found it a closed world, where all the positions in neurosciences were taken. Egas Moniz, who would later win the Nobel prize for medicine, advised him to go to Porto instead, where the field of neurosciences was a niche waiting to be explored.

However, the dean of Porto's medical school, a paediatrician, did not regard neurosciences as a priority, and once again Andrade found that the doors were closed. A friend helped him get a job as acting head of the wards in a psychiatric hospital. Andrade was not given much to do and did not find it the most fulfilling of roles, and meanwhile started working voluntarily at Santo Antonio General Hospital, where he soon made an impact.

From 1939 to 1976, when he retired from his hospital duties, Andrade took Porto from anonymity to a vibrant centre for neurosciences. In 1960 he set up a centre for the study of familial amyloidosis. He also carried out research on Machado-Joseph disease, another hereditary neurological condition.

In 1974, longing for an innovative centre that could ally research with multidisciplinary teaching, he brought together the group in charge of setting up what would become known as the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences (in homage to Abel Salazar, a doctor and close friend of Corino de Andrade). This became host to Porto's second medical school, as well as to schools of veterinary medicine, biochemistry, water sciences, and a range of graduate studies programmes.

Predeceased by his wife, he leaves three children.

Mario Corino da Costa Andrade, former neurologist Porto, Portugal (b Moura, Portugal, 1906; q Lisbon, Portugal, 1929), died from a protracted illness on 16 June 2005.