Giovanni Battista Grassi
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
zoologist, known for work demonstrating that mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s carry the malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
parasite Plasmodium
Plasmodium
Plasmodium is a genus of parasitic protists. Infection by these organisms is known as malaria. The genus Plasmodium was described in 1885 by Ettore Marchiafava and Angelo Celli. Currently over 200 species of this genus are recognized and new species continue to be described.Of the over 200 known...
in their digestive tract, on the embryological development of honey bees, on parasites, particularly the vine parasite phylloxera
Phylloxera
Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...
, migrations and metamorphosis in eel
Eel
Eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 20 families, 111 genera and approximately 800 species. Most eels are predators...
s, and on termites.
Biography
Grassi was born in RovellascaRovellasca
Rovellasca is a comune in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 25 km northwest of Milan and about 15 km south of Como....
, in what is now the province of Como
Province of Como
The Province of Como is a province in the north of the Lombardy region of Italy and borders the Swiss cantons of Ticino and Grigioni to the North, the Italian provinces of Sondrio and Lecco to the East, the Province of Milan to the south and the Province of Varese to the West...
.
He graduated in Medicine from the University of Pavia
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. It was founded in 1361 and is organized in 9 Faculties.-History:...
under professors Camillo Golgi
Camillo Golgi
Camillo Golgi was an Italian physician, pathologist, scientist, and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Camillo Golgi was born in the village of Corteno, Lombardy, then part of the Austrian Empire. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father was a physician and district medical officer...
and Giulio Bizzozero
Giulio Bizzozero
Giulio Bizzozero was an Italian doctor and medical researcher. He is known as the original discoverer of Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria which is responsible for peptic ulcer disease...
. After graduation he worked on parasitic worms
Parasitic worm
Parasitic worms or helminths are a division of eukaryoticparasites that, unlike external parasites such as lice and fleas, live inside their host. They are worm-like organisms that live and feed off living hosts, receiving nourishment and protection while disrupting their hosts' nutrient...
of medical importance especially the hookworm
Hookworm
The hookworm is a parasitic nematode that lives in the small intestine of its host, which may be a mammal such as a dog, cat, or human. Two species of hookworms commonly infect humans, Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus. A. duodenale predominates in the Middle East, North Africa, India...
in the Department of Comparative Anatomy
Comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny .-Description:...
at Sapienza University in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
From 1878 Grassi worked first at Messina in the Oceanographic Station founded by Nicolaus Kleinenberg
Nicolaus Kleinenberg
Nicolaus Kleinenberg was a German zoologist and evolutionary morphologist.He studied at the University of Jena under Ernst Haeckel obtaining his doctorate for studies of embryo cleavage in Hydra.His later work Hydra - Eine anatomisch-entwicklungsgeschichtliche untersuchung, in English An...
and Anton Dohrn
Anton Dohrn
Felix Anton Dohrn was a prominent German Darwinist and the founder and first director of the Stazione Zoologica, Naples, Italy.-Family history:...
where he studied Chaetognatha
Chaetognatha
Chaetognatha, meaning hair-jaws, and commonly known as arrow worms, are a phylum of predatory marine worms that are a major component of plankton worldwide. About 20% of the known species are benthic, that is belonging to the lowest zone of the ocean, or benthic zone, and can attach to algae and...
then at Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
with Karl Gegenbaur
Karl Gegenbaur
Karl Gegenbaur was a German anatomist and professor who demonstrated that the field of comparative anatomy offers important evidence supporting of the theory of evolution...
and Otto Bütschli
Otto Bütschli
Johann Adam Otto Bütschli was a German zoologist and professor at the University of Heidelberg. He specialized in invertebrates and insect development...
. While in Heidelberg Grassi married Maria Koenen.
In 1883 he became Professor of Comparative Zoology at the University of Catania
University of Catania
The University of Catania is a university located in Catania, Italy, and founded in 1434. It is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy and the 29th oldest university in the world...
, studying cestodes
Cestoda
This article describes the flatworm. For the medical condition, see Tapeworm infection.Cestoda is the name given to a class of parasitic flatworms, commonly called tapeworms, of the phylum Platyhelminthes. Its members live in the digestive tract of vertebrates as adults, and often in the bodies...
, the life cycle of the European eel
European eel
The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is a species of eel, a snake-like, catadromous fish. They can reach in exceptional cases a length of 1½ m, but are normally much smaller, about 60–80 cm, and rarely more than 1 m....
(Catania) and the Moray eel
Moray eel
Moray eels are cosmopolitan eels of the family Muraenidae. The approximately 200 species in 15 genera are almost exclusively marine, but several species are regularly seen in brackish water and a few, for example the freshwater moray can sometimes be found in freshwater...
(Rome). Also in Catania he began to study entomology and wrote a student text "The Origin and Descent of Myriapods and Insects" in addition to scientific papers. He also began to study malaria working with Raimondo Feletti
Raimondo Feletti
Raimondo Feletti was an Italian physician and zoologist.Feletti worked at a clinic in Catania where a street is named for him "Via Raimondo Feletti".With Giovanni Batista Grassi he published several works on malarial parasites in birds.They described, and introduced the names Haemamoeba vivax and H...
on malaria, especially bird malaria
Avian malaria
Avian malaria is a parasitic disease of birds.-Etiology:Avian malaria is most notably caused by Plasmodium relictum, a protist that infects birds in tropical regions...
.
In 1895 Grassi was appointed professor of comparative anatomy at Rome University and joined Angelo Celli
Angelo Celli
Angelo Celli was an Italian physician and zoologist who studied malaria.Celli graduated in medicine in 1878 at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he became hygiene professor. In 1880 with Ettore Marchiafava he studied a new protozoan discovered by Alphonse Laveran and which they called...
, Amico Bignami
Amico Bignami
Amico Bignami was an Italian physician and entomologistHe was born in Bologna and graduated as a doctor in Rome in 1882. In 1883, he became extraordinary professor of pathology and in 1906, full-time professor at the University of Rome. In 1917, he became professor of medicine, a post he occupied...
, Giuseppe Bastianelli
Giuseppe Bastianelli
Giuseppe Bastianelli was an Italian physician and zoologist who worked on malaria.Born in Rome, Bastianelli was initially interested in chemistry, physiology and neurology; subsequently he became interested in the study of malaria...
and Ettore Marchiafava
Ettore Marchiafava
Ettore Marchiafava was an Italian physician and zoologist who worked on malariaEttore Marchiafava , was the personal doctor of three popes and the Royal House of Savoy, a senator and professor of Pathological Anatomy at the Sapienza University of Rome...
a group working on malaria in districts around Rome. Grassi was the group’s entomologist. The group announced at the session of the Accademia dei Lincei
Accademia dei Lincei
The Accademia dei Lincei, , is an Italian science academy, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy....
on December 4th 1989 that a healthy man in a non-malarial zone had contracted tertian malaria after being bitten by an experimentally infected Anopheles claviger. Between 1900 and 1902, Grassi, Gustavo Pittaluga
Gustavo Pittaluga
Gustavo Pittaluga was an Italian doctor and biologist.Nationalized Spanish in 1904 Pittaluga made contributions to the development of haematology and the parasitology, as well as by his contributions to national and international fight against malaria and other protozoans causing disease s...
and Giovanni Noè made intensive sudies of malaria at Agro Portuense, at Fiumicino, on the Tiber
Tiber
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...
, and on the plain of Capaccio
Capaccio
Capaccio is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. The ruins of the ancient city of Paestum lie within borders of the comune.-Airport:...
, near Paestum.
In 1902, Grassi abandoned his study of malaria and began work on the sandfly responsible for Leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by protozoan parasites that belong to the genus Leishmania and is transmitted by the bite of certain species of sand fly...
(Phlebotomus
Phlebotomus
Phlebotomus is a genus of "sand fly" in the Dipteran family Psychodidae. In the past, they have sometimes been considered to belong in a separate family, Phlebotomidae, but this alternative classification has not gained wide acceptance.-Epidemiology:...
papatasii) and on a serious insect pest of the grape vine ( Phylloxera
Phylloxera
Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...
vastatrix ). Endemic malaria returned to Italy during and after the First World War and Grassi resumed his mosquito studies.
He died in Rome in 1925.
Works
Partial list- 1898. Rapporti tra la malaria e peculiari insetti (zanzaroni e zanzare palustri). R. C. Accad. Lincei 7:163-177.
- 1899. Ancora sulla malaria. R. C. Accad. Lincei 8:559-561.
- with Bignami,A. and Bastianelli, G.. 1899. Resoconto degli studi fatti sulla malaria durante il mese di gennaio. R. C. Accad. Lincei. 8:100-104.
- 1901. Studii di uno Zoologo sulla Malaria.Atti dei.Linncei.Mem. Cl.sc.fis.ecc.3(5),No. 91:299-516.6 plates in colour.
Recognition
He won the Royal SocietyRoyal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
's Darwin Medal
Darwin Medal
The Darwin Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every alternate year for "work of acknowledged distinction in the broad area of biology in which Charles Darwin worked, notably in evolution, population biology, organismal biology and biological diversity". First awarded in 1890, it was created in...
in 1896.
He was made a senator in Italy by King Victor Emmanuel III .
A stamp commemorating Grassi and with his portrait was issued by the Italian post office in 1955.
External links
- Biography of Grassi in English.
- Biography of Grassi In Italian, English translation sometimes available.
- Grassi versus Ross
- Contributions to Science
- Some places and memories related to Giovanni Battista Grassi