The Clinic was founded in 1944 in Porto by Dr Rufino Ribeiro. Later, in 1977, it took on a corporate form under the name Clínica Oftalmológica Dr Rufino Ribeiro, Lda. with Dr Rufino Ribeiro and Dr Paulo Ribeiro as partners.
It was transformed into a public limited company in the 1990s, and adopted the name Clínica Oftalmológica Ribeiro-Barraquer, SA in 2003, reflecting the shareholder structure at the time. In 2011, full ownership was resumed by the Ribeiro family.
Artistic composition by Master Isolino Vaz, based on elements from Egyptian funerary stelae, representing worship of the god Ra (god of the sun).
In ancient times, the Egyptians already performed some eye surgeries and in order for them to be successful, they exposed the surgical instruments to the god Ra of Heliopolis (1580-1345BC), i.e. to the sun.
In fact, ultraviolet rays are a powerful means of sterilisation that is still used today to disinfect water and was even used until a few years ago to sterilise certain surgical instruments. This explains why eye surgeries carried out at the time would have had some success and were not necessarily doomed to infection.