34 Facts About Marcello Malpighi

Marcello Malpighi was the first person to see capillaries in animals, and he discovered the link between arteries and veins that had eluded William Harvey.

The use of the microscope enabled Marcello Malpighi to discover that insects do not use lungs to breathe, but small holes in their skin called tracheae.

Marcello Malpighi studied the anatomy of the brain and concluded this organ is a gland.

Marcello Malpighi observed that when a ring-like portion of bark was removed on a trunk a swelling occurred in the tissues above the ring, and he correctly interpreted this as growth stimulated by food coming down from the leaves, and being blocked above the ring.

The son of well-to-do parents, Marcello Malpighi was educated in his native city, entering the University of Bologna at the age of 17.

Marcello Malpighi completed these studies about 1649, where at the persuasion of his mother Frances Natalis, he began to study physics.

Marcello Malpighi studied Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Bologna while he was very young.

Marcello Malpighi later graduated as a medical doctor at the age of 25.

For most of his career, Marcello Malpighi combined an intense interest in scientific research with a fond love of teaching.

Marcello Malpighi was invited to correspond with the Royal Society in 1667 by Henry Oldenburg, and became a fellow of the society the next year.

Marcello Malpighi questioned the prevailing medical teachings at Pisa, tried experiments on colour changes in blood, and attempted to recast anatomical, physiological, and medical problems of the day.

Marcello Malpighi's views evoked increasing controversy and dissent, mainly from envy and lack of understanding on the part of his colleagues.

In 1653, his father, mother, and grandmother being dead, Marcello Malpighi left his family villa and returned to the University of Bologna to study anatomy.

Weary of philosophical disputation, in 1660, Marcello Malpighi returned to Bologna and dedicated himself to the study of anatomy.

Marcello Malpighi subsequently discovered a new structure of the lungs which led him to several disputes with the learned medical men of the times.

Furthermore, Marcello Malpighi conducted his consultations not only by bedside, but by post, using letters to request and conduct them for various patients.

The manner in which Marcello Malpighi practiced medicine reveals that it was customary in his time for Italian patients to have multiple attending physicians as well as consulting physicians.

Marcello Malpighi did not abandon traditional substances or treatments, but he did not employ their use simply based on past experiences that did not draw from the nature of the underlying anatomy and disease process.

Specifically in his treatments, Marcello Malpighi's goal was to reset fluid imbalances by coaxing the body to correct them on its own.

In 1668, Marcello Malpighi received a letter from Mr Oldenburg of the Royal Society in London, inviting him to correspond.

Marcello Malpighi wrote his history of the silkworm in 1668, and sent the manuscript to Mr Oldenburg.

Marcello Malpighi shared more information regarding his research on plants.

Around the age of 38, and with a remarkable academic career behind him, Marcello Malpighi decided to dedicate his free time to anatomical studies.

In discovering and observing the capillaries in the frog's lungs, Marcello Malpighi studied the movement of the blood in a contained system.

Marcello Malpighi used the microscope for his studies of the skin, kidneys, and liver.

For example, after he dissected a black male, Marcello Malpighi made some groundbreaking headway into the discovery of the origin of black skin.

Marcello Malpighi found that the black pigment was associated with a layer of mucus just beneath the skin.

Marcello Malpighi adds that it is strange that nature has produced on the leaves of the flower shell-like organs in which honey is produced.

Marcello Malpighi had success in tracing the ontogeny of plant organs, and the serial development of the shoot owing to his instinct shaped in the sphere of animal embryology.

Marcello Malpighi specialized in seedling development, and in 1679, he published a volume containing a series of exquisitely drawn and engraved images of the stages of development of Leguminosae and Cucurbitaceae.

Marcello Malpighi conjectured that the creatures in question arose from eggs previously laid in the plant tissue.

Marcello Malpighi postulated about the embryotic growth of humans, written in a letter to Girolamo Correr, a patron of scientists, Malphighi suggested that all the components of the circulatory system would have been developed at the same time in embryo.

Marcello Malpighi's discoveries helped to illuminate philosophical arguments surrounding the topics of emboitment, pre-existence, preformation, epigenesis, and metamorphosis.

Marcello Malpighi taught medicine in the Papal Medical School and wrote a long treatise about his studies which he donated to the Royal Society of London.