Marcello Malpighi (March 10, 1628 - September 30, 1694) was an Italian doctor, who gave his name to several physiological features. Events 241 BC - First Punic War: Battle of the Aegates Islands - The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing Events 1399 - Henry IV is proclaimed King of England. 1744 - France and Spain defeat the Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest
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Early years
Malpighi was born in Crevalcore (Cavalcuore in old Italian), Italy, raised on the farm his parents owned and entered the University of Bologna at the age of 17. Crevalcore is a town and Comune in the Emilia-Romagna region near Bologna, Italy. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The University of Bologna (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna UNIBO) is one of the oldest continually operating degree-granting universities in the world Malpighi began to study Aristotelian philosophy. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language When his father, mother and paternal grandmother died, he had to abandon his studies for more than two years to settle family affairs. He returned to university after two years, and became a doctor of medicine in 1653. Medicine is the art and science of healing It encompasses a range of Health care practices evolved to maintain and restore Human Health by the The next year he married Francesca Massari, younger sister of his anatomy professor, the next year. She died a year later.
Academic career
In 1656 Malpighi received a chair of medical practice in the university, three years after he had applied for it, and later the same year University of Pisa created a chair of theoretical medicine for him. The University of Pisa ( Italian Università di Pisa) is one of the most renowned Italian universities He stayed in Pisa for three years and then returned to Bologna. Pisa is a city in Tuscany, central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the Arno River on the Ligurian Sea. Bologna (boloɲa from Latin Bononia, Bulåggna in Bolognese dialect is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy In 1661 he was called to University of Messina where he stayed for four years. The University of Messina ( Italian: Università degli Studi di Messina, UNIME is a university located in Messina, Italy, and founded in
Most of Malpighi's research results were published as articles in the journal of the Royal Society of England. The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as The Royal Society, is a Learned society for science that was founded in 1660 His first article appeared there in 1661 and was about anatomy of a lung of a frog during which he had discovered capillaries. lung is the essential Respiration organ in air-breathing Animals including most Tetrapods a few Fish and a few Snails The most primitive Capillaries are the smallest of a body's Blood vessels measuring 5-10 μm in diameter which connect Arterioles and Venules and enable the interchange In 1667 Henry Oldenburg invited Malpighi to correspond with the Royal Society regularly and he became a fellow the next year, the first such recognition given to an Italian. Henry Oldenburg (c 1619 - September 1677 worked as a Diplomat and a Natural philosopher.
Research
Malpighi used the microscope for studies on skin, kidney, and for the first interspecies comparison of the liver. A microscope ( Greek: ( micron) = small + ( skopein) = to look or see is an instrument for viewing objects that are The skin is the outer covering of living tissue of an animal (or plant The kidneys are complicated organs that have numerous biological roles The liver is a vital organ in the human body and is present in Vertebrates and some other animals He greatly extended the science of embryology. Embryology (from Greek grc ἔμβρυον embryon, "unborn embryo" and grc -λογία -logia) is the study of the development The use of microscopes enabled him to describe the development of the chick in its egg, and discovered that insects (particularly, the silk worm) do not use lungs to breathe, but small holes in their skin called tracheae. Birds ( class Aves) are bipedal endothermic ( Warm-blooded) Vertebrate animals that lay eggs. In most Birds and Reptiles an egg ( Latin ovum) is the Zygote, resulting from Fertilization of the Ovum. Insects ( Class Insecta) are a major group of Arthropods and the most diverse group of Animals on the Earth with over a million described lung is the essential Respiration organ in air-breathing Animals including most Tetrapods a few Fish and a few Snails The most primitive Many terrestrial Arthropods have evolved a closed Respiratory system composed of Spiracles, tracheae and Tracheoles to transport metabolic Later he falsely concluded that plants had similar tubules. However, he observed that when a ringlike portion of bark was removed on a trunk a swelling of the tissues would occur above the ring. He correctly interpreted this as growth stimulated by food coming down from the leaves, and becoming dammed up above the ring. He was the first to see capillaries and discovered the link between arteries and veins that had eluded William Harvey. William Harvey ( April 1, 1578 – June 3, 1657) was an English Physician who is credited with being the first in
Malpighi is regarded as the founder of microscopic anatomy and the first histologist. Histology (from the Greek = 'tissue' is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of Plants and Many microscopic anatomical structures are named after him, including a skin layer (Malpighi layer) and two different Malpighian corpuscles in the kidneys and the spleen, as well as the Malpighian tubules in the excretory system of insects. Malpighian layer (or Malpighi layer, named after Marcello Malpighi, also called germinative layer or basal cell layer; Latin: The kidneys are complicated organs that have numerous biological roles The spleen is an organ found in all Vertebrate animals In humans the spleen is located in the abdomen of the body where it functions in the destruction of redundant Red The Malpighian tubule system is a type of Excretory and osmoregulatory system found in some Uniramia ( Insects and Myriapoda)
He also studied chick embryo development with detailed drawings and discovered taste buds of human tongue. Birds ( class Aves) are bipedal endothermic ( Warm-blooded) Vertebrate animals that lay eggs. Taste buds are small structures on the upper surface of the Tongue, Soft palate, upper Esophagus and Epiglottis that provide information about Some of his studies he made by vivisection. He also studied the anatomy of a brain and concluded that this organ is a gland. The brain is the center of the Nervous system in animals All Vertebrates and the majority of Invertebrates have a brain A gland is an organ in an animal's body that synthesizes a substance for release such as Hormones or Breast milk, often into the Bloodstream In terms of modern endocrinology this deduction is correct because neurotransmitter substances represent paracrine hormones, and the hypothalamus of the brain has long been recognized for its hormone-secreting capacity. He was also the first to discover and study human fingerprints. A fingerprint is an impression of the friction ridges of all or any part of the finger
His treatise 'De polypo cordis' (1666) was important towards understanding how blood clots and its composition. He may have been the first person to see red blood cells under a microscope. He described how the form of a blood clot differed in the right vs. the left sides of the heart.
Despite of his anatomical studies, he was also one of the rare contemporary scholars who studied plants; he published his findings in a book Anatomia Plantarum in 1671. Botany, plant science(s, phytology, or plant biology is a branch of Biology and is the scientific study of plant Life It was the most exhaustive study of botany at the time. Royal Society published it the next year.
After the dissection of a black male, Malpighi made some ground-breaking headway into the discovery of the origin of black skin. Malpighi found that the black pigment was caused because of a layer of mucus just beneath the skin [1]
Years in Rome
1691 Pope Innocent XII invited him to Rome as Papal physician, He taught medicine in the Papal Medical School and wrote a long treatise about his studies he donated to Royal Society of London. Pope Innocent XII ( March 13, 1615 &ndash September 27, 1700) born Antonio Pignatelli was Pope from 1691 to 1700 Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2
Marcello Malpighi died of apoplexy in Rome on September 30, 1694. Events 1399 - Henry IV is proclaimed King of England. 1744 - France and Spain defeat the Royal Society published his studies in 1696.
Memories of Malpighi in Bologna
The body of Malpighi is buried in the church of the Santi Gregorio e Siro, in Bologna, where nowadays can be seen a marble monument to the scientist with an inscription in Latin remembering - among other things - his "SUMMUM INGENIUM / INTEGERRIMAM VITAM / FORTEM STRENUAMQUE MENTEM / AUDACEM SALUTARIS ARTIS AMOREM" (great genius, honest life, strong and tough mind, daring love for the medical art). Bologna (boloɲa from Latin Bononia, Bulåggna in Bolognese dialect is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy
Some of Malpighi's important works
- De viscerum structura exercitati
- De pulmonis epistolae
References
- Adelmann, Howard (1966) Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology 5 vol. , Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N. Y. OCLC 306783
External links
- Biography of Marcello Malpighi in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Some places and memories related to Marcello Malpighi
"Marcello Malpighi". Catholic Encyclopedia. The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language Encyclopedia published by The Encyclopedia (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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