Manuel Bento de Sousa | |
Honorific-Suffix: | OSE |
Birth Date: | 5 December 1835 |
Birth Place: | Ponte da Barca, Viana do Castelo, Portugal |
Death Place: | Lisbon, Portugal |
Nationality: | Portuguese |
Occupation: | Physician and professor |
Manuel Bento de Sousa (5 December 1835 – 29 April 1899) was a Portuguese physician, anatomist, and noted polemicist writer.
A most prestigious clinician and surgeon in his day, his most important scientific works were conducted in the field of anatomophysiology: notably, in 1870, a purely intellectual inquiry led him to correctly postulate (though without scientific confirmation) the taste sensory component of the intermediate nerve of Wrisberg.[1] This hypothesis was later confirmed by the findings of Carlos Tavares in 1883, leading to the description of the gustatory nerve of Sousa.[2]
In 1875–1876, Bento de Sousa served as President of the Lisbon Society of Medical Sciences.[1]
As a writer, he penned A Parvónia in 1868 (under the pseudonym "Marcos Pinto"), a satirical account of the vices of Lisbon society, and O Doutor Minerva in 1894, mocking the current teaching of the History of Portugal.