In this paper, we present the results of toxicological analyses of preserved brain tissue and bone samples from the remains of the seventeenth century patients of the Ospedale Maggiore, the main ...hospital in Milan and one of the most innovative hospitals in Europe from the Renaissance period. Beneath it, the crypt functioned as the burial place for the deceased of the hospital. In this multidisciplinary study of the remains, toxicological analyses in particular were performed with HPLC-MS/MS on different biological samples from nine individuals. Anthropological, paleopathological, histological, radiological examinations and radiocarbon dating were also carried out. As a result, archeotoxicological analyses revealed the presence of codeine, morphine, noscapine and papaverine, derived from Papaver somniferum, a plant present in the hospital pharmacopeia used as a narcotic, analgesic, astringent, coagulant, and antitussive agent. Such analyses have shed light on the pharmacological therapies administered to the patients near the time of death and have implemented our knowledge of medical treatment and drug administration in the 1600's.
The authors analyse descriptions of Greenlandic and Faroese medicine found in an Italian medical publication from the 18th century entitled, Europae Medicina a Sapientibus Illustrata ..., which was ...printed in Brescia, in Northern Italy, in 1747. The author of these descriptions, Francesco Roncalli Parolino (1692-1769), was a renowned European physician. Roncalli Parolino focused his study on the treatment of scurvy and he promoted the inclusion of the Greenlandic and Faroese therapy into the broader European context. He was influenced to do this due to the already integrated European perspective of medicine which his book follows.
Like now, medicine in 18th-century Europe was multicentric and characterised by rich intellectual activity, which contributed to the enhancement of clinical practice during this period. At the time, Greenland and Faroe Islands were also integrated into this European context because they contributed for medical-scientific development that would lay the foundations for modern medicine. Francesco Roncalli Parolino obtained just recognition for these regions through the advancement and defence of their valuable medical contributions.
Medicine in Milan between the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries
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The author deals with the medical-surgical panorama in Milan at the turn of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th ...century. The advances in knowledge acquired from the mid-nineteenth century on led to the emergence of medical and surgical specializations, as well as of new tools for the prevention and treatment of diseases, and the creation of a health and care network, on which it was possible to graft highly developed training opportunities. The example of an institution set up in Milan at the beginning of the twentieth century to treat the results of traumatic events is emblematic, not only because it is related to occupational accidents, but also because it explains the need to have specialists from various medical and surgical disciplines at the service of the entire population.
Opera and neuroscience Lorusso, Lorenzo; Franchini, Antonia Francesca; Porro, Alessandro
Progress in brain research,
2015, Letnik:
216
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Opera is the most complete form of theatrical representation, characterized by musical accompaniment, both instrumental and vocal. It has played an important role in sociocultural spheres, affecting ...the various social strata and reflecting customs and ideas in different centuries. Composers have created pieces that have also shown the development of medicine. Since the birth of opera in seventeenth century in Italy, neuroscience has played an important role in influencing the representation of madness and neurological aspects. From the Folly of the Renaissance, a path toward a representation of madness was developed, initially linked to the myths of classical antiquity. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, madness was represented as comical or funny, of a loving nature and influenced by the spread of the Commedia dell'Arte (Comedy of Art). In the nineteenth century, with the rise of the first scientific theories of the mind, insanity took more precise connotations and was separated from other psychiatric and neurological diseases. The operas of the twentieth century depicted psychiatric and neurological diseases, taking into account newer medical and scientific discoveries.
The Corona Virus 19 (COVID 19) epidemic is an infectious disease which was declared as a pandemic and hit all the Countries, all over the world, from the beginning of the year 2020. There are many ...similarities between the COVID 19 epidemic and the Spanish flu epidemic. We considered some preventive measures which do not change in the two epidemics.
Terminology, technology, communication and organizational strategies are different but we tried to compare the mass vaccination campaign against smallpox with the one we are doing against coronavirus.
Syphilis was a widespread infectious disease in 17th‐century Italy, commonly treated with mercury‐based ointments and fumigations. Few reports exist on the analysis of abnormally high Hg levels in ...bone as a result of exposure to mercury‐containing anti‐syphilitic medicine. In this research, two crania recovered among the 2.9 million commingled bones resting under the crypt of the former hospital of the poor of Milan were submitted to pathological, radiological and toxicological analysis. The crania showed gummatous lesions characteristic of tertiary syphilis and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) analysis revealed over the double values of Hg in bone relative to that of the control sample. Archival documentation confirms the presence and use of mercury‐based treatments in the pharmacy of the hospitals of Milan. Consequently, the individuals probably came into contact with mercury as a treatment for syphilis, confirming its medical use in 17th‐century Milan and strengthening our knowledge of the history of medicine.
More than eighty years ago, the so-called Racial Laws banished Italian Jews from all their properties and places. The authors analyze the biography of Salomone Enrico Emilio Fran-co (1881-1950), a ...cosmopolite pathologist. Born in Trieste but raised in Venice, he had his medical degree in Padua and was a pathologist at the Venice Hospital, and then he went to Portugal. Franco founded the Institute of pathology of Lisbon University. He studied leish-maniosis and hematology. During WWI, he served as a volunteer in the Italian Army. He was then a full professor of pathology at the Universities of Sassari, Bari, and Pisa. However, he was obliged by the so-called Racial Laws to leave Italy and go to Palestine. He fought as a volunteer for the realization of the State of Israel and directed the Institute of Pathology in Jerusalem.
•An Italian debate in mid-19th century about brain language localization is reported.•Italian language-impaired patients were studied in light of Bouillaud’s claims.•This Italian debate has been ...completely ignored in the history of aphasia.
From 1825 onward, Bouillaud began gathering clinical evidence to support the hypothesis that speech is located in the cerebral frontal lobes. His aim was to provide empirical proof to Gall’s theory of a specific substratum of speech in the anterior region of the brain. A well-known discussion ensued inside the French school among supporters and detractors that went far beyond Broca’s first report in 1861. Unknown is that Bouillaud’s investigations on localization of articulated language also gave rise to a discussion in Italy in the same period. In particular, speech localization formed a central topic in the mid-19th century in Northern Italy mainly thanks to four physicians, Michelangelo Asson, Mosè Rizzi, Gaetano Strambio and Filippo Lussana, who reported on language-impaired patients and approached these cases in the light of Bouillaud’s claims. Similarly to the French debate, the Italian medical community also included attacks and advocacies of the hypothesis of a precise localization of articulated language in the frontal lobes. However, they were mainly interested in investigating the anatomo-clinical relationships rather than in supporting Gall’s organology. This Italian debate appears to be the first to have developed in the mid-19th century outside that of the French community.
Più di ottant’anni fa le cosiddette Leggi Razziali espulsero gli Ebrei Italiani dalle loro proprietà e da ogni luogo. Gli autori analizzano l’ergobiografia di salomone Enrico Emilio Franco, un ...anatomopatologo cosmopolita. Nato a Trieste, ma educato a Venezia, egli condusse la sua formazione medica a Padova, fu anatomopatologo all’Ospedale Civile di Venezia, per poi raggiungere il Portogallo. Franco fondò l’Istituto di Patologia Generale dell’Università di Lisbona. Studiò la leishmaniosi e si dedicò a ricerche di ematologia. Durante la Prima Guerra Mondiale combatté come volontario nel R. Esercito italiano. Fu poi professore di Anatomia patologia nelle Università di Sassari, Bari e Pisa, ma le cosiddette Leggi Razziali lo costrinsero a trovare rifugio in Palestina. Combatté come volontario per la creazione di Eretz Yisrael, ed indi diresse l’Istituto di Patologia della Hadassah a Gerusalemme.
More than eighty years ago, the so-called Racial Laws banished Italian Jews from all their properties and places. The authors analyze the biography of Salomone Enrico Emilio Franco (1881-1950), a cosmopolite pathologist. Born in Trieste but raised in Venice, he had his medical degree in Padua and was a pathologist at the Venice Hospital, and then he went to Portugal. Franco founded the Institute of pathology of Lisbon University. He studied leishmaniosis and hematology. During WWI, he served as a volunteer in the Italian Army. He was then a full professor of pathology at the Universities of Sassari, Bari, and Pisa. However, he was obliged by the so-called Racial Laws to leave Italy and go to Palestine. He fought as a volunteer for the realization of the State of Israel and directed the Institute of Pathology in Jerusalem.
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