Giovanni Battista Morgagni
Encyclopedia
Giovanni Battista Morgagni (February 25, 1682 – December 6, 1771) was an Italian
anatomist
, celebrated as the father of modern anatomical pathology
.
; it appears from his letters to Giovanni Maria Lancisi
that Morgagni was ambitious of gaining admission into that rank, and it may be inferred that he succeeded from the fact that he is described on a memorial tablet at Padua as nobilis forolensis. At the age of sixteen he went to Bologna
to study philosophy
and medicine
, and he graduated with much éclat as doctor
in both faculties three years later, in 1701. He acted as prosector
to Antonio Maria Valsalva
(one of the distinguished pupils of Malpighi
), who held the office of demonstrator anatomicus in the Bologna school, and whom he assisted more particularly in preparing his celebrated work on the Anatomy and Disease
s of the Ear
, published in 1704.
Morgagni succeeded to his anatomical demonstratorship. At this period he enjoyed a high repute in Bologna; he was made president of the Academia Enquietorum when in his twenty-fourth year, and he is said to have signalized his tenure of the presidential chair by discouraging abstract speculations, and by setting the fashion towards exact anatomical observation and reasoning.
He published the substance of his communications to the Academy in 1706 under the title of Adversaria anatomica, the first of a series by which he became favorably known throughout Europe
as an accurate anatomist; the book included Observations of the Larynx
, the Lachrymal Apparatus
, and the Pelvic Organs
in the Female
. After a time he gave up his post at Bologna, and occupied himself for the next two or three years at Padua, where he had a friend in Domenico Guglielmini (1655-1710), professor
of medicine, but better-known as a writer
on physics
and mathematics
, whose works he afterwards edited (1719) with a biography
. Guglielmini desired to see him settled as a teacher at Padua, and the unexpected death of Guglielmini himself made the project feasible, Antonio Vallisneri
(1661-1730) being transferred to the vacant chair, and Morgagni succeeding to the chair of theoretical medicine. He came to Padua in the spring of 1712, being then in his thirty-first year, and he taught medicine there with the most brilliant success until his death
on the 6th of December 1771.
senate
) to the chair of anatomy, in which he became, the successor of an illustrious line of scholars, including Vesalius
, Gabriele Falloppio
, Geronimo Fabrizio
, Gasserius, and Adrianus Spigelius, and in which he enjoyed a stipend that was increased from time to time by vote of the senate until it reached twelve hundred gold
ducat
s. Shortly after coming to Padua he married a lady of Forlì, of noble parentage, who bore him three sons and twelve daughters.
Morgagni enjoyed an unequalled popularity among all classes. He was of tall and dignified figure, with blonde hair and lilac eyes, and with a frank and happy expression; his manners were polished, and he was noted for the elegance of his Latin
style. He lived in harmony with his colleagues, who are said not even to have envied him his unprecedentedly large stipend; his house and lecture-theatre were frequented tanquam officina sapientiae by students of all ages, attracted from all parts of Europe; he enjoyed the friendship and favor of distinguished Venetian senators and of cardinals
; and successive pope
s conferred honours upon him.
Before he had been long in Padua the students of the German
nation, of all the faculties there, elected him their patron, and he advised and assisted them in the purchase of a house to be a German library
and club, for all time. He was elected into the imperial Caesareo-Leopoldina Academy in 1708 (originally located at Schweinfurth), and to a higher grade in 1732, into the Royal Society in 1724, into the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1731, the St. Petersburg Academy in 1735, and the Berlin Academy in 1754. Among his more celebrated pupils were Antonio Scarpa
(who died in 1832, connecting the school of Morgagni with the modern era), Domenico Cotugno (1736-1822), and Caldani
(1725-1813), the author of the magnificent atlas of anatomical plates published in 2 volumes at Venice in 1801-1814.
In his earlier years at Padua, Morgagni brought out (1717-1719) five more series of the Adversaria anatomica, these his strictly medical publications were few and casual (on gallstone
s, varices of the Venae cavae
, cases of stone, and several memoranda on medico-legal points, drawn up at the request of the curia). Classical scholarship in those years occupied his pen more than anatomical observation.
anatomy a science
, and diverted the course of medicine into new channels of exactness or precision—the De Sedibus et causis morborum per anatomem indagatis, which during the succeeding ten years, notwithstanding its bulk, was reprinted several times (thrice in four years) in its original Latin, and was translated into French
(1765), English
(1769), and German
(1771). Some account of this remarkable work remains now to be given.
The only special treatise on pathological anatomy previous to that of Morgagni was the work of Théophile Bonet of Neuchâtel, Sepulchretum: sive anatomia practica ex cadaveribus morbo denalis, first published (Geneva
, 2 vols. folio) in 1679, three years before Morgagni was born; it was republished at Geneva (3 vols., folio) in 1700, and again at Leiden in 1709. Although the normal anatomy of the body had been comprehensively, and in some parts exhaustively, written by Vesalius and Fallopius, it had not occurred to any one to examine and describe systematically the anatomy of diseased organs and parts. Harvey
, a century after Vesalius, poignantly remarks that there is more to be learned from the dissection of one person who had died of tuberculosis
or other chronic malady than from the bodies of ten persons who had been hanged.
Francis Glisson
indeed (1597-1677) shows in a passage quoted by Bonet in the preface to the Sepulchretum, that he was familiar with the idea, at least, of systematically comparing the state of the organs in a series of bodies
, and of noting those conditions which invariably accompanied a given set of symptoms. The work of Bonet was, however, the first attempt at a system of morbid anatomy, and, although it dwelt mostly upon curiosities and monstrosities, it enjoyed much repute in its day; Haller
speaks of it as an immortal work, which may in itself serve for a pathological library.
Morgagni, in the preface to his own work, discusses the defects and merits of the Sepulchrelum: it was largely a compilation of other men's cases, well and ill authenticated; it was prolix, often inaccurate and misleading from ignorance of the normal anatomy, and it was wanting in what would now be called objective impartiality a quality which was introduced as decisively into morbid anatomy by Morgagni as it had been introduced two centuries earlier into normal human anatomy by Vesalius.
Morgagni has narrated the circumstances under which the De Sedibus took origin. Having finished his edition of Valsalva in 1740, he was taking a holiday in the country, spending much of his time in the company, of a young friend who was curious in many branches of knowledge. The conversation turned upon the Sepulchretum of Bonet, and it was suggested to Morgagni by his dilettante friend that he should put on record his own observations. It was agreed that letters on the anatomy of diseased, organs and parts should be written for the perusal of this favoured youth (whose name is not mentioned); and they were continued from time to time until they numbered seventy. Those seventy letters constitute the De sedibus et causis morborum, which was given to the world as a systematic treatise in 2 vols., folio (Venice, 1761), twenty years after the task of epistolary instruction was begun.
The letters are arranged in five books, treating of the morbid conditions of the body a capite ad calcem, and together containing the records of some 646 dissections. Some of these are given at great length, and with a precision of statement and exhaustiveness of detail hardly surpassed in the so-called protocols of the German pathological institutes of the present time; others, again, are fragments brought in to elucidate some question that had arisen. The symptoms during the course of the malady and other antecedent circumstances are always prefixed with more or less fullness, and discussed from the point of view of the conditions found after death. Subjects in all ranks of life, including several cardinals, figure in this remarkable gallery of the dead. Many of the cases are taken from Morgagni's early experiences at Bologna, and from the records of his teachers Valsalva and HF Albertini not elsewhere published. They are selected and arranged with method and purpose, and they are often (and somewhat casually) made the occasion of a long excursus on general pathology and medicine.
, is astonishing. It has been contended that he was himself not free from prolixity, the besetting sin
of the learned; and certainly the form and arrangement of his treatise are such as to make it difficult to use in the present day, notwithstanding that it is well indexed in the original edition, in that of Tissot (3 vols., 4to, Yverdon, 1779), and in more recent editions. It differs from modern treatises insofar as the symptoms determine the order and manner of presenting the anatomical facts.
His 1769 work described the post mortem findings of air in cerebral circulation
and surmised this was the cause of death. Although Morgagni's cases resulted from gas embolism due to damage to the bowel, the same pathology is seen in decompression illness
.
Although Morgagni was the first to understand and to demonstrate the absolute necessity of basing diagnosis
, prognosis
, and treatment on an exact and comprehensive knowledge of anatomical conditions, he made no attempt (like that of the Vienna
school sixty years later) to exalt pathological anatomy into a science disconnected from clinical medicine and remote from practical experience with the scalpel
, his precision, his exhaustiveness, and his freedom from bias are his essentially modern or scientific qualities; his scholarship and high consideration for classical and foreign work, his sense of practical ends (or his common sense), and the breadth of his intellectual horizon prove him to have lived before medical science had become largely technical or mechanical.
His treatise was the commencement of the era of steady, or cumulative progress in pathology and in practical medicine. From that time on, symptoms ceased to be made up into more or less conventional groups, each of which was a disease; on the other hand, they began to be viewed as the cry of the suffering organs, and it became possible to develop Thomas Sydenham
's grand conception of a natural history
of disease in a catholic or scientific spirit.
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...
anatomist
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
, celebrated as the father of modern anatomical pathology
Anatomical pathology
Anatomical pathology or Anatomic pathology is a medical specialty that is concerned with the diagnosis of disease based on the gross, microscopic, chemical, immunologic and molecular examination of organs, tissues, and whole bodies...
.
Education
His parents were in comfortable circumstances, but not of the nobilityNobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
; it appears from his letters to Giovanni Maria Lancisi
Giovanni Maria Lancisi
Giovanni Maria Lancisi was an Italian physician, epidemiologist and anatomist who made a correlation between the presence of mosquitoes and the prevalence of malaria...
that Morgagni was ambitious of gaining admission into that rank, and it may be inferred that he succeeded from the fact that he is described on a memorial tablet at Padua as nobilis forolensis. At the age of sixteen he went to Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
to study philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, and he graduated with much éclat as doctor
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in both faculties three years later, in 1701. He acted as prosector
Prosector
A prosector is a person with the special task of preparing a dissection for demonstration, usually in medical schools or hospitals. Many important anatomists began their careers as prosectors working for lecturers and demonstrators in anatomy and pathology....
to Antonio Maria Valsalva
Antonio Maria Valsalva
Antonio Maria Valsalva , was an Italian anatomist born in Imola. His research focused on the anatomy of the ears. He coined the term Eustachian tube and he described the aortic sinuses of Valsalva in his writings, published posthumously in 1740...
(one of the distinguished pupils of Malpighi
Marcello Malpighi
Marcello Malpighi was an Italian doctor, who gave his name to several physiological features, like the Malpighian tubule system.-Early years:...
), who held the office of demonstrator anatomicus in the Bologna school, and whom he assisted more particularly in preparing his celebrated work on the Anatomy and Disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
s of the Ear
Ear
The ear is the organ that detects sound. It not only receives sound, but also aids in balance and body position. The ear is part of the auditory system....
, published in 1704.
Early career
Many years after, in 1740, Morgagni edited a collected edition of Valsalva's writings, with important additions to the treatise on the ear, and with a memoir of the author. When Valsalva was transferred to ParmaParma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
Morgagni succeeded to his anatomical demonstratorship. At this period he enjoyed a high repute in Bologna; he was made president of the Academia Enquietorum when in his twenty-fourth year, and he is said to have signalized his tenure of the presidential chair by discouraging abstract speculations, and by setting the fashion towards exact anatomical observation and reasoning.
He published the substance of his communications to the Academy in 1706 under the title of Adversaria anatomica, the first of a series by which he became favorably known throughout Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
as an accurate anatomist; the book included Observations of the Larynx
Larynx
The larynx , commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the neck of amphibians, reptiles and mammals involved in breathing, sound production, and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. It manipulates pitch and volume...
, the Lachrymal Apparatus
Lacrimal gland
The lacrimal glands are paired almond-shaped glands, one for each eye, that secrete the aqueous layer of the tear film. They are situated in the upper, outer portion of each orbit, in the lacrimal fossa of the orbit formed by the frontal bone. Inflammation of the lacrimal glands is called...
, and the Pelvic Organs
Organ (anatomy)
In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in structural unit to serve a common function. Usually there is a main tissue and sporadic tissues . The main tissue is the one that is unique for the specific organ. For example, main tissue in the heart is the myocardium, while sporadic are...
in the Female
Female
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
. After a time he gave up his post at Bologna, and occupied himself for the next two or three years at Padua, where he had a friend in Domenico Guglielmini (1655-1710), professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of medicine, but better-known as a writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
on physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, whose works he afterwards edited (1719) with a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
. Guglielmini desired to see him settled as a teacher at Padua, and the unexpected death of Guglielmini himself made the project feasible, Antonio Vallisneri
Antonio Vallisneri
Antonio Vallisneri was an Italian medical scientist, physician and naturalist.-Life:Vallisneri was born in Trassilico, a small village in Garfagnana, and graduated in medicine in 1684, in Reggio Emilia, under the guidance of Marcello Malpighi.He studied at Bologna, Venice, Padua and Parma and held...
(1661-1730) being transferred to the vacant chair, and Morgagni succeeding to the chair of theoretical medicine. He came to Padua in the spring of 1712, being then in his thirty-first year, and he taught medicine there with the most brilliant success until his death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
on the 6th of December 1771.
Middle career
When he had been three years in Padua an opportunity occurred for his promotion (by the VenetianVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
senate
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature or parliament. There have been many such bodies in history, since senate means the assembly of the eldest and wiser members of the society and ruling class...
) to the chair of anatomy, in which he became, the successor of an illustrious line of scholars, including Vesalius
Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius was a Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica . Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. Vesalius is the Latinized form of Andries van Wesel...
, Gabriele Falloppio
Gabriele Falloppio
Gabriele Falloppio , often known by his Latin name Fallopius, was one of the most important anatomists and physicians of the sixteenth century....
, Geronimo Fabrizio
Hieronymus Fabricius
Hieronymus Fabricius or Girolamo Fabrizio or by his Latin name Fabricus ab Aquapendende also Girolamo Fabrizi d'Acquapendente was a pioneering anatomist and surgeon known in medical science as "The Father of Embryology."...
, Gasserius, and Adrianus Spigelius, and in which he enjoyed a stipend that was increased from time to time by vote of the senate until it reached twelve hundred gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
ducat
Ducat
The ducat is a gold coin that was used as a trade coin throughout Europe before World War I. Its weight is 3.4909 grams of .986 gold, which is 0.1107 troy ounce, actual gold weight...
s. Shortly after coming to Padua he married a lady of Forlì, of noble parentage, who bore him three sons and twelve daughters.
Morgagni enjoyed an unequalled popularity among all classes. He was of tall and dignified figure, with blonde hair and lilac eyes, and with a frank and happy expression; his manners were polished, and he was noted for the elegance of his Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
style. He lived in harmony with his colleagues, who are said not even to have envied him his unprecedentedly large stipend; his house and lecture-theatre were frequented tanquam officina sapientiae by students of all ages, attracted from all parts of Europe; he enjoyed the friendship and favor of distinguished Venetian senators and of cardinals
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
; and successive pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
s conferred honours upon him.
Before he had been long in Padua the students of the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
nation, of all the faculties there, elected him their patron, and he advised and assisted them in the purchase of a house to be a German library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
and club, for all time. He was elected into the imperial Caesareo-Leopoldina Academy in 1708 (originally located at Schweinfurth), and to a higher grade in 1732, into the Royal Society in 1724, into the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1731, the St. Petersburg Academy in 1735, and the Berlin Academy in 1754. Among his more celebrated pupils were Antonio Scarpa
Antonio Scarpa
Antonio Scarpa was an Italian anatomist and professor.-Biography:Antonio was born to an impoverished family in the frazione of Lorenzaga, Motta di Livenza, Veneto. An uncle, who was a member of the priesthood, gave him instruction until the age of 15, when he passed the entrance exam for the...
(who died in 1832, connecting the school of Morgagni with the modern era), Domenico Cotugno (1736-1822), and Caldani
Leopoldo Marco Antonio Caldani
Leopoldo Marco Antonio Caldani was an Italian anatomist and physiologist.Caldani was born in Bologna, Italy. He studied medicine in Bologna, receiving his degree in 1750, and became a professor of practical medicine in 1755...
(1725-1813), the author of the magnificent atlas of anatomical plates published in 2 volumes at Venice in 1801-1814.
In his earlier years at Padua, Morgagni brought out (1717-1719) five more series of the Adversaria anatomica, these his strictly medical publications were few and casual (on gallstone
Gallstone
A gallstone is a crystalline concretion formed within the gallbladder by accretion of bile components. These calculi are formed in the gallbladder, but may pass distally into other parts of the biliary tract such as the cystic duct, common bile duct, pancreatic duct, or the ampulla of...
s, varices of the Venae cavae
Venae cavae
The superior and inferior vena cava are collectively called the venae cavae. They are the veins that return deoxygenated blood from the body into the heart. They both empty into the right atrium....
, cases of stone, and several memoranda on medico-legal points, drawn up at the request of the curia). Classical scholarship in those years occupied his pen more than anatomical observation.
Late career
It was not until 1761, when he was in his eightieth year, that he brought out the great work which, once for all, made pathologicalPathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
anatomy a science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, and diverted the course of medicine into new channels of exactness or precision—the De Sedibus et causis morborum per anatomem indagatis, which during the succeeding ten years, notwithstanding its bulk, was reprinted several times (thrice in four years) in its original Latin, and was translated into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(1765), English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(1769), and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
(1771). Some account of this remarkable work remains now to be given.
The only special treatise on pathological anatomy previous to that of Morgagni was the work of Théophile Bonet of Neuchâtel, Sepulchretum: sive anatomia practica ex cadaveribus morbo denalis, first published (Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, 2 vols. folio) in 1679, three years before Morgagni was born; it was republished at Geneva (3 vols., folio) in 1700, and again at Leiden in 1709. Although the normal anatomy of the body had been comprehensively, and in some parts exhaustively, written by Vesalius and Fallopius, it had not occurred to any one to examine and describe systematically the anatomy of diseased organs and parts. Harvey
William Harvey
William Harvey was an English physician who was the first person to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the body by the heart...
, a century after Vesalius, poignantly remarks that there is more to be learned from the dissection of one person who had died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
or other chronic malady than from the bodies of ten persons who had been hanged.
Francis Glisson
Francis Glisson
Francis Glisson was a British physician, anatomist, and writer on medical subjects. He did important work on the anatomy of the liver, and he wrote an early pediatric text on rickets...
indeed (1597-1677) shows in a passage quoted by Bonet in the preface to the Sepulchretum, that he was familiar with the idea, at least, of systematically comparing the state of the organs in a series of bodies
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
, and of noting those conditions which invariably accompanied a given set of symptoms. The work of Bonet was, however, the first attempt at a system of morbid anatomy, and, although it dwelt mostly upon curiosities and monstrosities, it enjoyed much repute in its day; Haller
Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet.-Early life:He was born of an old Swiss family at Bern. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind...
speaks of it as an immortal work, which may in itself serve for a pathological library.
Morgagni, in the preface to his own work, discusses the defects and merits of the Sepulchrelum: it was largely a compilation of other men's cases, well and ill authenticated; it was prolix, often inaccurate and misleading from ignorance of the normal anatomy, and it was wanting in what would now be called objective impartiality a quality which was introduced as decisively into morbid anatomy by Morgagni as it had been introduced two centuries earlier into normal human anatomy by Vesalius.
Morgagni has narrated the circumstances under which the De Sedibus took origin. Having finished his edition of Valsalva in 1740, he was taking a holiday in the country, spending much of his time in the company, of a young friend who was curious in many branches of knowledge. The conversation turned upon the Sepulchretum of Bonet, and it was suggested to Morgagni by his dilettante friend that he should put on record his own observations. It was agreed that letters on the anatomy of diseased, organs and parts should be written for the perusal of this favoured youth (whose name is not mentioned); and they were continued from time to time until they numbered seventy. Those seventy letters constitute the De sedibus et causis morborum, which was given to the world as a systematic treatise in 2 vols., folio (Venice, 1761), twenty years after the task of epistolary instruction was begun.
The letters are arranged in five books, treating of the morbid conditions of the body a capite ad calcem, and together containing the records of some 646 dissections. Some of these are given at great length, and with a precision of statement and exhaustiveness of detail hardly surpassed in the so-called protocols of the German pathological institutes of the present time; others, again, are fragments brought in to elucidate some question that had arisen. The symptoms during the course of the malady and other antecedent circumstances are always prefixed with more or less fullness, and discussed from the point of view of the conditions found after death. Subjects in all ranks of life, including several cardinals, figure in this remarkable gallery of the dead. Many of the cases are taken from Morgagni's early experiences at Bologna, and from the records of his teachers Valsalva and HF Albertini not elsewhere published. They are selected and arranged with method and purpose, and they are often (and somewhat casually) made the occasion of a long excursus on general pathology and medicine.
Legacy
The range of Morgagni's scholarship, as evidenced by his references to early and contemporary literatureContemporary literature
Contemporary literature is literature with its setting generally after World War II. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance.-History:This table lists literary movements by decade. It should not be assumed to be comprehensive....
, is astonishing. It has been contended that he was himself not free from prolixity, the besetting sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
of the learned; and certainly the form and arrangement of his treatise are such as to make it difficult to use in the present day, notwithstanding that it is well indexed in the original edition, in that of Tissot (3 vols., 4to, Yverdon, 1779), and in more recent editions. It differs from modern treatises insofar as the symptoms determine the order and manner of presenting the anatomical facts.
His 1769 work described the post mortem findings of air in cerebral circulation
Circulatory system
The circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients , gases, hormones, blood cells, etc...
and surmised this was the cause of death. Although Morgagni's cases resulted from gas embolism due to damage to the bowel, the same pathology is seen in decompression illness
Decompression illness
Decompression Illness describes a collection of symptoms arising from decompression of the body.DCI is caused by two different mechanisms, which result in overlapping sets of symptoms. The two mechanisms are:...
.
Although Morgagni was the first to understand and to demonstrate the absolute necessity of basing diagnosis
Medical diagnosis
Medical diagnosis refers both to the process of attempting to determine or identify a possible disease or disorder , and to the opinion reached by this process...
, prognosis
Prognosis
Prognosis is a medical term to describe the likely outcome of an illness.When applied to large statistical populations, prognostic estimates can be very accurate: for example the statement "45% of patients with severe septic shock will die within 28 days" can be made with some confidence, because...
, and treatment on an exact and comprehensive knowledge of anatomical conditions, he made no attempt (like that of the Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
school sixty years later) to exalt pathological anatomy into a science disconnected from clinical medicine and remote from practical experience with the scalpel
Scalpel
A scalpel, or lancet, is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and various arts and crafts . Scalpels may be single-use disposable or re-usable. Re-usable scalpels can have attached, resharpenable blades or, more commonly, non-attached, replaceable...
, his precision, his exhaustiveness, and his freedom from bias are his essentially modern or scientific qualities; his scholarship and high consideration for classical and foreign work, his sense of practical ends (or his common sense), and the breadth of his intellectual horizon prove him to have lived before medical science had become largely technical or mechanical.
His treatise was the commencement of the era of steady, or cumulative progress in pathology and in practical medicine. From that time on, symptoms ceased to be made up into more or less conventional groups, each of which was a disease; on the other hand, they began to be viewed as the cry of the suffering organs, and it became possible to develop Thomas Sydenham
Thomas Sydenham
Thomas Sydenham was an English physician. He was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset, where his father was a gentleman of property. His brother was Colonel William Sydenham. Thomas fought for the Parliament throughout the English Civil War, and, at its end, resumed his medical studies at Oxford...
's grand conception of a natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
of disease in a catholic or scientific spirit.
Eponymous structures
- Aortic sinusAortic sinusAn aortic sinus is one of the anatomic dilations of the ascending aorta, which occurs just above the aortic valve.There are generally three aortic sinuses, the left posterior, the right posterior and the anterior....
("sinus of Morgagni") - Columns of Morgagni
- Foramina of MorgagniForamina of MorgagniThe sternocostal triangle or foramina of Morgagni are small zones lying between the costal and sternal attachments of the thoracic diaphragm...
- Hydatid of MorgagniHydatid of MorgagniThe Hydatid of Morgagni can refer to one of two closely related structures:* Appendix testis * Vesicular appendages of epoophoron...
- Morgagni's hernia
External links
- Some places and memories of Giovanni Battista Morgagni, himetop.wikidot.com