MALPIGHI

MALPIGHI Marcello (Marcello Malpighi, 1628-94), Italian physician, anatomist, and naturalist, founder of microscopic anatomy. M. studied at the University of Bologna under the anatomist Massari, received his doctorate in medicine in 1653, and was successively professor of medicine in Bologna, Pisa, again in Bologna, Messina, once more in Bologna, and finally physician to Pope Innocentius XII. M. was an active pioneer in the fields of histology, embryology, and botany. The application of the microscope allowed him to make many anatomical and histological discoveries: his name is associated with the layer of the epidermis in vertebrates, with the renal glomeruli, with the splenic corpuscles, and with the urinary tubules of insects. He also discovered the alveolar structure of the lungs and the connection of arteries with veins through capillaries, which Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, had failed to prove. This discovery brought M. many enemies among the supporters of the authority of Galen and Aristotle. Together with Swammerdam, M. can be considered the founder of the anatomy of invertebrate animals, to which he gave impetus with his exemplary anatomy of the silkworm (Bombyx mori), which he prepared for the Royal Society of London, of which he was elected a member. M.'s second work for this society was devoted to the microscopic structure of plants. M. pointed out that different parts of plants consist of microscopic sacs (utriculi) and tubes (vessels). Thus he discovered the cellular structure of plants, although the significance of cells was not yet appreciated. Other botanical works of M. dealt with the external anatomy of plants. His works on the development of the chick in the egg were of great importance. His detailed descriptions, stage by stage, of the development of the chick from the moment of egg-laying to hatching far surpassed the works of his predecessors on the same subject.