Tanwarpal Singh at 23:08, 7 February 2026

2026-02-07T23:08:06Z

New page

{{Short description|Portuguese physician and botanist (1823–1897)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = José Camillo Lisboa
| image = JC Lisboa.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1823|3|5|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Assagão]], [[Goa]], [[Portuguese India]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1897|5|1|1823|3|5|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Poona]], [[British India]]
| spouse = Julia Lisboa
| alma_mater = [[Grant Medical College]] (1851)
}}

'''José Camillo Lisboa''' (5 March 1823<ref name=bio>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/noodealgunsfilh00abregoog/page/n39/mode/1up|title=Noção de alguns filhos distinctos da India Portugueza |author=Abreu, Miguel Vicente de |year=1874| place=Nova-Goa|pages=27–28|language=pt}}</ref> – 1 May 1897) was a Portuguese physician and botanist. He was among the first Portuguese-[[Goan]] physicians and graduated from the inaugural class of the [[Grant Medical College]] in [[Bombay]], [[British India]]. After graduating in 1851, he worked as a doctor at the Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy Hospital in Bombay. Along with his wife Julia Rodrigues Lisboa, he studied the grasses of [[western India]] and published a special volume on the useful plants of the region as part of the [[Bombay Gazette|Gazetteer]] of the [[Bombay Presidency]] in 1886.

==Early life and career==
Lisboa was born in [[Assagao|Assagão]], [[Bardes]], son of Antonio Xavier Lisboa. His early education was at home under an uncle who was also a [[catholic priest|priest]]. He then studied in the Parish Music School before going to [[Margão]] where he studied Portuguese, Latin, mathematics and history. He studied at the 22nd Regiment School in [[Poona]], [[British India]] and was among the first eight students to study at the [[Grant Medical College]] in [[Bombay]] and graduated in 1851. He then worked briefly as a sub-assistant surgeon under British surgeon [[John Peet (1818-1874)|John Peet]] at the Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy Hospital and Grant Medical College and then began a private practice after rejecting a transfer to [[Karachi]], British India (now part of Pakistan). In 1871, Lisboa established the Grémio Lusitano where he gave lectures on the plants of the Bible. He was elected a member of the [[Bombay Natural History Society]] (BNHS) in 1886 and took a keen interest in botany, publishing in the society's journal<ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, J.C. |year=1896 |title=The poisonous plant Sheula (Amorphophallus commutatus Engler). A corrected description. |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30255109 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=527–530}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, J. C. |year=1887 |title=Notes on Mahableshwar and other Indian arrowroot yielding plants. |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15883978 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=2 |pages=140–147}}</ref> specializing later on the grasses.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, J.C.|year=1890 |title=Bombay grasses. Part III |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2081668 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=5|pages=337–349}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, J.C. |year=1890|title=Bombay grasses. Part II |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2081479 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=5|pages=226–232}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, J.C.|year=1890 |title=List of Bombay grasses. Part I |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2081476 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=5|pages=116–131}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2074798|title=Bombay Grasses. Part IV.|journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=6| year=1891|pages=189–219|author=Lisboa, J.C.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30219236|title=Bombay Grasses. Part V.|journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=7| year=1892|pages=357–390|author=Lisboa, J.C.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30402768|title=Bombay Grasses. Part VI.|journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=8| year=1893|pages=107–119|author=Lisboa, J.C.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title= Hereditary disease of the branches and leaves of Ficus tsiela|pages=76–84 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society| volume=7| year=1892|url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30218903 | author=Lisboa, J.C.}}</ref> He also examined floral and climate change in [[Mahabaleshwar]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Parasnis, D.B. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mahabaleshwar00para/page/26/mode/1up |title=Mahalabeshwar |publisher=Lakshmi Art Printing Works |year=1916 |place=Bombay |pages=26–40 |chapter=Short notes on the present altered climate of Mahableshwar and its causes }}</ref>

==Personal life==
Lisboa married Júlia Rodrigues (1840–1926), daughter of Prof. António Filipe Rodrigues. She too was interested in botany and independently contributed notes on grasses<ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, Mrs J.C. |year=1889 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2070236 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=4 |pages=118–124|title= Short notes on the odoriferous grasses (Andropogons) of India and Ceylon, with a description of a supped new species}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Lisboa, Mrs J. C. |year=1891 |title=A List of the Odoriferous Grasses of India, with a Description of a New Species of Andropogon [A. Huegelii, Hack.] |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2074749 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=6 |pages=64–71}}</ref> to the Journal of the BNHS. In 1886 he also compiled a list of useful plants in the Bombay Presidency classified by usage including a list of plants eaten during famines. This was published as a part of the Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency edited by [[James Macnabb Campbell]] after whom Lisboa named a plant ''Arundinella campbelliana'' (now considered a synonym of ''[[Jansenella griffithiana]]'').<ref>{{cite book |author=Lisboa, J.C. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924070623750/page/n24/mode/1up |title=Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency. Volume 25 |year=1886 |pages=1–401 |chapter=Useful plants of the Bombay Presidency Gazetter of Bombay Presidency}}</ref>

Lisboa was politically outspoken and was a supporter of [[Padroado]]{{efn|For more on the schism see Hull (1920)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bombaymissionhis01hull|title= Bombay mission history : with a special study of the padroado question| author= Hull, Ernest Reginald| year= 1920|publisher=Examiner Press|place=Bombay}}</ref>}} favouring the accountability of the King of Portugal and wrote in the bilingual newspaper ''Abelha de Bombaim''. He was also a supporter of the [[Konkani language]] and active in the Instituto Luso-Indiano.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |author=Gonsalves, Shirley Louise |title=The Luso-Indian Stethoscope. A Community's Participation in the Medical Profession in Nineteenth-Century Bombay |publisher=Goa 1556 |year=2018 |isbn=9788193423691 |place=Goa |pages=97–103}}</ref>

==Death and legacy==
After the death of Lisboa at his home in Poona in 1897 following paralysis some months prior,<ref>{{cite journal|url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30157082|title=Obituary: J. C. Lisboa|journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=11| page= 339|year=1897}}</ref> Julia established a Gold Medal at the Bombay University with an award of {{INRConvert|6000|year=1897}}. Lisboa had himself established a scholarship in botany at the Grant Medical College in 1882. The Assagão Union founded a school in his memory in 1923<ref name=":1" /> called the Dr J C Lisboa School which existed until 1951.<ref>{{cite book|author=Costa, Aleixo Manuel da |pages= 192–194| volume=2| title=Dicionário de Literatura Goesa |year=1997}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Portuguese-speaking Goan Women Writers in Late Colonial India (1860-1940)| author=Vicente, Filipa Lowndes| journal=Portuguese Studies Review| volume=25| issue=1| year=2017| pages=315–345|url=https://repositorio.ul.pt/handle/10451/31578}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frenz |first=Margret |date=2021 |title=To Be or Not To Be … a Global Citizen: Three doctors, three empires, and one subcontinent |journal=Modern Asian Studies |language=en |volume=55 |issue=4 |pages=1185–1226 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X20000256 |s2cid=228902654 |issn=0026-749X|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite book |author=Pandya, Sunil |title=Medical Education in Western India: Grand Medical College Medical Education and Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy's Hospital |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |year=2018 |pages=487–491}}</ref>

Lisboa's medical studies including those on leprosy (where he tried the extracts of ''[[Psoralea corylifolia]]''),<ref>{{cite journal |year=1897 |title=The late Dr J.C. Lisboa |journal=The Lancet |volume=149 |issue=3851 |page=1719 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(01)13384-2}}</ref> and the medical properties of opium. He was one of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Indian Hemp Commission<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.1917/page/n7/mode/1up|publisher=Government of India| title=Indian Hemp Drugs Commission. Volume 7. Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma| year=1894| place= Calcutta|page= vii}}</ref> where he was in favour of moderate use of opium for relief under certain circumstances.<ref>{{cite journal |year=1894 |title=Medical evidence given before the Royal Commission on Opium |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.4041/page/n141/mode/1up |journal=The Indian Medical Record |volume=6 |pages=212–214}}</ref> Lisboa served also as a [[Justice of the peace|Justice of Peace]], had been a member of the Bombay Natural History Society, the Asiatic Society of Bombay, a fellow of the [[Linnean Society of London]] (elected 1888, withdrew 1893, re-elected 1894<ref>{{cite journal |title=Obituary |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8321524 |journal=Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London |volume=110 |page=41}}</ref>), the Geographical and Medical Society of Lisbon and the Academie Internationale de Geographique Botanique. A road in Assagao is named after him.<ref name=":0" /> The grasses ''[[Tripogon lisboae]]'' and ''[[Ischaemum lisboae]]'' have been named after Júlia R. Lisboa who corresponded with botanists in England after the death of her husband (her name is sometimes given in the Portuguese form as Donna Lisboa<ref>{{cite journal|title=Material for the flora of Mahabaleshwar-8|author1=Bole, P.V. | author2=Almeida, M.R.| pages=372–391|journal = Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=84|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/49081451|year=1987}}</ref>).{{efn|Note that some works like Clifford & Bostock (2007) incorrectly attribute it to J.C. Lisboa. The Latin ending -ae is feminine.<ref>{{cite book|title= Etymological Dictionary of Grasses|author1=Clifford, H. Trevor |author2=Bostock, Peter D. |isbn=978-3-540-38434-2|year=2007|page=172|publisher=Springer}}</ref>}}

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.7483 List of Bombay grasses and their uses] (1896)
* [https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.6256/mode/2up Useful plants of the Bombay Presidency] (1883)
* [https://www.geni.com/people/Dr-Jos%C3%A9-Camilo-Lisboa/6000000010149969469 Biography]

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lisboa, Jose Camillo}}
[[Category:1823 births]]
[[Category:1897 deaths]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Linnean Society of London]]
[[Category:Members of the Bombay Natural History Society]]
[[Category:People from Portuguese India]]
[[Category:People from North Goa district]]
[[Category:Medical doctors from Goa]]

José Camillo Lisboa - Revision history

Tanwarpal Singh at 23:08, 7 February 2026