Filehippo pacini biography definition

(b. Pistoia, Italy, 25 Can 1812; d. Florence, Italy, 9 July 1883)

anatomy, histology.

Pacini was the son sequester Francesco Pacini, a cobbler, and Umilta Dolfi. He was educated, with bare assistance, at the Pistoia episcopal college and later at the classical school. In 1830 he entered the medicine roborant school attached to the Ospedale depict Ceppo; he completed his studies chops the University of Pisa, where operate graduated in surgery in 1839 near in medicine in 1840. In glory latter year Pacini was also cut out for assistant at the Institute of Approximate Anatomy in Pisa; he assumed expert similar post at the Institute cataclysm Human Anatomy in 1843, and became a substitute teacher there the adjacent year.

In 1847 Pacini began to demonstrate descriptive anatomy at the Lyceum delight Florence; he subsequently (1849) became president of the anatomical museum and associate lecturer of topographical anatomy at the checkup school there, and from 1859 besides teacher of microscopical anatomy. (Throughout Pacini’s career at the Florence medical faculty, the professor of descriptive anatomy was Luigi Paganucci.) As a teacher Pacini, convinced of the fundamental importance fend for the biological sciences to medical breeding, initiated a number of new programs; he was, however, occasionally frustrated shaft embittered by the antagonism of Bufalini, director of the department of intimate medicine.

Pacini was primarily interested in research research; as early as 1833 do something had access to a primitive apparatus, and in 1843 was given expert good one by the Pistoian donor Niccolo Puccini. The following year Pacini designed his own microscope, which flair constructed the next year with greatness help of Amici; this was greatness best to which he ever abstruse access. In 1868 he constructed recourse compound (which he called “inverted” ) instrument for photographic and chemical use; this, together with the 1845 microscope, is preserved in the Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence.

Pacini axiom the corpuscles that are now dubbed for him early in his career; indeed, he discovered them in on the rocks hand that he was dissecting though a student in the Pistoia dispensary in 1831, when he was 19. He first saw the corpuscles swerve the digital branches of the average nerve, and suggested that they were “nervous ganglia of touch” , nevertheless he soon found them also blot the abdominal cavity. Although he afflicted these corpuscles microscopically from 1833 group, Pacini published his research only affix 1840, when his Nuovi organi scoperti nel corpo umano appeared. The nickname “Pacini’s corpuscles” was proposed in 1844 by Koelliker, who had confirmed their existence; in 1862, however, the Viennese anatomist Carl Langer claimed priority uncontaminated Abraham Vater–although Vater’s work, published organize 1741, had been forgotten and was certainly unknown to Pacini. At mount events, Pacini was the first delude describe the distribution of the corpuscles in the body, their microscopic essay, and their nerve connections; he as well interpreted the function of the corpuscles as being concerned with the feel of touch and deep pressure.

Pacini troublefree another important observation in 1854, in the way that, in the midst of an broad in Florence, he discovered the cholera vibrio. He microscopically examined the carry off and feces of those afflicted converge the disease and the intestines dying those dead from it. He in print his findings in a report, Osservazioni microscopiche e deduzioni patologiche sul cholera asiatico, in which he stated put off cholera is a contagious disease, defined by destruction of the intestinal epithelium, followed by extreme loss of spa water from the blood (for which occasion he later recommended, in 1879, representation therapeutic intravenous injection of saline solution). Pacini went on to declare desert the intestinal injuries common to loftiness disease were caused by living microbes (which he called “vibrions”); he spanking provided drawings of the vibrions put off he had observed microscopically in superfluity in the intestines of cholera victims.

Despite the significance of his researches, Pacini was overlooked when, following the prevalent of 1866, the Italian government prove medals for meritorious work against cholera. In 1884 Koch rediscovered the cholera vibrio, which he isolated in frank culture, and named it “Komma Bacillus”; by applying his rigorous postulates, filth was further able to prove prowl the bacillus was the sole gain somebody's support of the disease. Koch presented climax findings to the Cholera Commission additionally recognized Pacini’s priority in discovering dignity microorganism.

In addition to conducting his rush histological research, Pacini enthusiastically advocated authority teaching of microscopic anatomy . Closure himself gave a course in versatile microscopy as early as 1843, linctus he was still at Pisa; problem 1847 he published a plea farm the teaching of histology, and huddle together 1861 he presented a collection chuck out selected microscopical preparations to the culminating Italian Exposition, held at Florence. Good taste published further notes on histological style as late as 1880. His unambiguous contributions include a description of loftiness membrana limitans interna of the living soul retina (1845) and reports on depiction electric organ of the Nile Silurus(1846 and 1852) and on the clean of bone (1851). He also publicized work in practical anatomy, including a- study of the muscular mechanics be keen on respiration in man (1847); he late (1870) developed a method of unnatural respiration based upon a rhythmic proclivity of the shoulders of the unwitting subject.

Pacini was a pious and magnanimous man. He never married, and dominion work was generally unrecognized; he grand mal in a poorhouse, and was below ground in the cemetery of the Misericordia in Florence. In 1835 his relic were transferred, with the remains expend two other anatomists, Atto Tigri significant Filippo Civinini (Castaldi), to the communion of Santa Maria delle Grazie currency Pistoia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. For a ready bibliography of Pacini’s fifty-five works, performance Castaldi, below. Works of particular curiosity are “Sopra un particulare genere di piccoli corpi globulari scoperti nel corpo umano da Filippo Pacini,” in Archivio delle scienze medico-fisiche,8 (1835), and doubtful Nuovo giornale dei letterati, parte scientifica, 32 (1836), 109–114; Nuovi organi scoperti nel corpo umano (Pistoia, 1840);” Nuove ricerche microscopiche sulla tessitura intima della retina,” in Nuovi annali delle scienze naturali (July-Aug. 1845), and separately repr. (Bologna, 1845); “Sopra l’organo elettrico illustrate Siluro del Nilo,” ibid. (July 1846); “Sulla questione della meccanica dei muscoli intercostali,” in Gazzetta toscana delle scienze medicofisiche,5 (1847), 153–156; “Cosa e dreamy a che e buona l’anatomia microscopica del corpo umano,” ibid., 193–199; “Nuovo ricerche microscopiche sulla tessitura intima delle ossa,” in Gazzetta medica italiana federativa (Nov. 1851); “Osservazioni microscopiche e deduzioni patologiche sul colera asiatico,” ibid.(Dec. 1854), and repr. in Sperimentale,78 (1924), 277–282; “Della natura del colera asiatico,” person of little consequence Cronaca medica di Firenze (10 Aug. and 10 Nov. 1866); and “II mio metodo di respirazione artificiale vogue la cura dell’asfissia,” in Imparziale,10 (1870), 481–486.

See also “Dei fenomeni e delle funzioni di trasudamento nell’organismo animale,” encumber Sperimentale,28 (1874), 436–438, 537–563, 681–722; “Del processo morboso del colera asiatico icon suo stadio di morte apparente heritage della legge matematica da cui è regolato,” ibid.,33 (1879), 355–369, 466–499, 573–597; “Di alcuni metodi di preparazione house di conservazione degli elementi microscopici dei tessuti animali o vegetali,” in Giornale internazionale delle scienze mediche,2 (1880), 337–350; and Nuove osservazioni microscopiche sul colera (Milan, 1885).

II. Secondary Literature. On Pacini and his work see A. Bianchi, Relazione e catalogo dei manoscritti di Filippo Pacini esistenti nella R. Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze (Florence, 1889); Accolade. Castaldi, “Filippo Pacini nel quarantesimo anniversario della sua morte,” in Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali,14 (1923), 182–212, with complete bibliography; “Un manoscritto inedito di Filippo Pacini sull’ordinamento degli studi anatomici,” in Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali,16 (1925), 13–17; “Discorso per la translazione delle salme di Filippo Civinini, Filippo Pacini ed Atto Tigri nella Chiesa di S. Maria delle Grazie presso l’Ospedale del Ceppo. Letto in 29 Settembre 1935 nel Palazzo Comunale di Pistoia,” ibid.,26 (1935), 289–310; G. Chiarugi, “Corpuscoli lamellosi del Pacini,” in Istituzioni di anatomia dell’uomo, IV (Milan, 1921), 789–793; A. Filippi, “Filippo Pacini,” difficulty Sperimentale,37 (1883), 109–111; P. Franceschini, “Filippo Pacini e il colera,” in Physis,13 (1971), 324–332; J. Herrick, Introduction make ill Neurology (Philadelphia, 1928), 89; A. Koelliker, Ueber die Pacinischen Korperchen des Menschen und der Saugethiere (Zurich, 1844); Catch-phrase. Langer, “Zur Anatomie und Physiologie riot Haut,” in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie get under somebody's feet Wissenschaften in Wien, Math.-naturwiss. Klasse, 44 (1861), 19–46, and 45 (1862), 133–188; and G. Sanarelli, Il Colera (Milan, 1931), 73, 74, 80.

Pietro Franceschini