Marcello Malpighi

Marcello Malpighi was a wonderful early microscopic anatomists who was born on March 10th, 1628 in a place called Crevalcore, near Bologna. At age eighteen he entered the University of Bologna and he was granted doctrates in medicine and philosophy seven years later. Then Marcello went on to teach logic there until 1656, next he was called to the chair of theoretical medicine at the University of Pisa and decided to leave for Pisa. Three years later he returned to the University of Bologna to lecture in theoretical and practical medicine, this is the period of time when Malpighi became the first person ever to see capillary circulation. This discovery was first documented in two letters De Pulmonibus. Marcello Malpighi was the first to attempt the intricate anatomy of the brain. In 1662 he took the position of primary professor at the University of Messina and Epistolae anatomicae Marc. Malpighii et Car. Fracassati was published in 1662. From age 38 to 63 he returned to the University of Bologna and taught practical medicine. In 1669 De viscerum structura: exercitatio anatomica was published in London. De structura glandularum conglobatarum was published in 1689 two years later he moved to Rome and was the chief physician to Pope Innocent XII. He died in Rome on November 30th, 1694 at age 66. Three years after his death the book Opera posthuma, et vita a seipso scripta was published. His contributions to anatomy and medicine will be remembered forever because Marcello Malpighi made many discoveries that help people survive every day.