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MALPIGHI, MARCELLO (1628-1694)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 497 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MALPIGHI, See also:MARCELLO (1628-1694) , See also:Italian physiologist, was See also:born at Crevalcuore near See also:Bologna, on the loth of See also:March 1628. At the See also:age of seventeen he began the study of See also:philosophy; it appears that he was also in the See also:habit of amusing himself with the See also:microscope. In 1649 he started to study See also:medicine; after four years at Bologna he graduated there as See also:doctor. He at once applied to be admitted to lecture in the university, but it was not till after three years (1656) that his See also:request was granted. A few months later he was appointed to the See also:chair of theoretical medicine at See also:Pisa, where he enjoyed the friendship and countenance of G. A. See also:Borelli. At the end of four years he See also:left Pisa, on the ground of See also:ill-See also:health, and returned to Bologna. A See also:call to be See also:professor primarius at See also:Messina (procured for him through Borelli, who had in the meantime become professor there) induced him to leave Bologna in 1662. His engagement at Messina was for a See also:term of four years, at an See also:annual See also:stipend of 1000 scudi. An See also:attempt was made to retain him at Messina beyond that See also:period, but his services were secured for his native university, and he spent the next twenty-five years there. In 1691, being then in his sixty-See also:fourth See also:year, and in failing health, he removed to See also:Rome to become private physician to See also:Pope See also:Innocent XII., and he died there of See also:apoplexy three years later, on the 3oth of See also:November 1694.

Shortly before his See also:

death, he See also:drew up a See also:long See also:account of his academical and scientific labours, See also:correspondence and controversies, and committed it to the See also:charge of the Royal Society of See also:London, a See also:body with which he had been in intimate relations for more than twenty years. The auto-See also:biography, along with some other See also:posthumous writings, was published in London in 1696, at the cost of the Society. The See also:personal details left by Malpighi are few and dry. His narrative is mainly occupied with a See also:summary of his scientific contributions and an account of his relations to contemporary anatomists, and is entirely without See also:graces of See also:style or elements of See also:ordinary human See also:interest. Malpighi was one of the first to apply the microscope to the study of See also:animal and See also:vegetable structure; and his discoveries were so important that he may be considered to be the founder of microscopic See also:anatomy. It was his practice to open animals alive, and some of his most striking discoveries were made in those circumstances. Although See also:Harvey had correctly inferred the existence of the capillary circulation, he had never seen it; it was reserved for Malpighi in 1661 (four years after Harvey's death) to see for the first See also:time the marvellous spectacle of the See also:blood See also:coursing through a network of small tubes on the See also:surface of the See also:lung and of the distended urinary See also:bladder of the See also:frog. We are enabled to measure the difficulties of microscopic observation at the time by the fact that it took Malpighi four years longer to reach a clear understanding of the corpuscles in the frog's blood, although they are the parts of the blood by which its See also:movement in the capillaries is made visible. His See also:discovery of the capillary circulation was given to the See also:world in the See also:form of two letters De Pulmonibus, addressed to Borelli, published at Bologna in 1661 and reprinted at See also:Leiden and other places in the years following; these letters contained also the first account of the vesicular structure of the human lung, and they made a theory of respiration for the first time possible. The achievement that comes next both in importance and in See also:order of time was a demonstration of the See also:plan of structure of secreting glands; against the current See also:opinion (Zevived by F. Ruysch See also:forty years later) that the glandular structure was essentially that of a closed vascular coil from which the secretion exuded, he maintained that the secretion was formed in terminal acini See also:standing in open communication with the ducts. The name of Malpighi is still associated with his discovery of the soft or mucous See also:character of the See also:lower stratum of the epidermis, of the vascular coils in the cortex of the See also:kidney, and of the follicular bodies in the See also:spleen.

He was the first to attempt the finer anatomy of the See also:

brain, and his descriptions of the See also:distribution of See also:grey See also:matter and of the fibre-tracts in the See also:cord, with their extensions to the cerebrum and cerebellum, are distinguished by accuracy; but his microscopic study of the grey matter conducted him to the opinion that it was of glandular structure and that it secreted the " vital See also:spirits." At an See also:early period he applied himself to vegetable See also:histology as an introduction to the more difficult study of the animal tissues, and he was acquainted with the See also:spiral vessels of See also:plants in 1662. It was not till 1671 that he wrote his Anatome plantarum and sent it to the Royal Society, who published it in the following year. An See also:English See also:work under a similar See also:title (Anatomy of Vegetables) had been published in London a few months earlier, by See also:Nehemiah See also:Grew; so that Malpighi's priority as a vegetable histologist is not so incontestable as it is in animal histology. The Anatome plantarum contained an appendix, Observations de ovo incubato, which gave an account (with See also:good plates) of the development of the chick (especially of the later stages) in many points more See also:complete than that of Harvey, although the observations were needlessly lessened in value by being joined to the metaphysical notion of ` praedelineation " in the undeveloped ovum. He also wrote Epistolae anatomicae Marc. Malpighii et See also:Car. Fracassati (See also:Amsterdam, 1662) (on the See also:tongue, brain, skin, omentum, &c.) ; De viscerum structura: exercitatio anatomica (London, 1669) ; De structura glandularum conglobatarum (London, 1689) ; See also:Opera posthuma, et vita a seipso scripta (London, 1697; another edition, with See also:preface and additions, was published at Amsterdam in 1700.) An edition containing all his See also:works except the last two was published in London in 1687, in 2 vols. See also:folio, with portrait and plates.

End of Article: MALPIGHI, MARCELLO (1628-1694)

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