Giovanni Maria Lancisi and urology in Rome in early modern age

Journal of Nephrology

Volumn 16, Issue 6, 2003, Pages 939-944

  Gazzaniga, Valentina ^a  

^a SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME   (Italy)

Author keywords

Biblioteca Lancisiana; Chemistry; Early modern age; Giovanni Maria Lancisi; Medicine; Rome; Urology

Indexed keywords

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION; CLINICAL PRACTICE; CONFERENCE PAPER; DATA ANALYSIS; FUNCTIONAL ANATOMY; HUMAN; ITALY; MEDICAL EDUCATION; MEDICAL LITERATURE; MEDICAL SCHOOL; PATHOPHYSIOLOGY; THEORY; URINALYSIS; URINARY EXCRETION; URINE COLOR; UROLOGY; ARTICLE; HISTORY; PUBLICATION;

HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 18TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MANUSCRIPTS, MEDICAL; ROME; UROLOGY;

EID: 1642568688     PISSN: 11218428     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (31)

1. From 1684 to 1695 he teaches Surgery and Anatomy; from 1696 to 1701, Theoretic Medicine extra ordinem; from 1702 to 1719, Practical Medicine, for some years jointly with Giovanni Trulli (the Theoretical medicine being entrusted, from 1704, to the young Giorgio Baglivi's professorship). Archivio di Stato di Roma, Fondo Università, b. 94 and b. 213; Conte A (Ed.): I maestri della Sapienza di Roma dal 1514 al 1787: i Rotuli ed altre fonti. Roma, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, 1991.
2. Eustachi B. Tabulae anatomicae clarissimi viri Bartholomaei Eustachi, quas... Romae, ex officina typographica Francisci Gonzagae, 1714. Mercati M: Michaelis Mercati Samminiatensis Methallotheca. Opus posthumum, auctoritate, & munificentia Clementis undecimi pontifici maximi e tenebris in lucem eductum; opera autem, & studio Joannis Mariae Lancisii archiatri pontificii illustratum... Romae, Jo. Ma. Salvioni, 1717.
3. Angeletti LR, Gazzaniga V, Conforti M, Fiorilla M, Marinozzi S. Giovanni Maria Lancisi e l'Accademia che non c'è. XLII Congr. Naz. Soc. Ital. Storia della Medicina, Bologna, 24-26 ottobre 2002.
4. Grungilius PH: Philippi Grungilii Tractatus novus de calculo et suppressione urinae. Lipsiae, sumpt. Georgii Hernrici Frommanni, 1668; Praevotio Ioanne: De urinis. Patavii, typis Matthei Bolzettae de Cadorinis, 1667; Bellini L: De urinis et pulsibus opus Laurentii Bellini. Bononiae, ex typographia H.H. Antonj Pisarrii, 1683; Bellini L: De urinis et pulsibus Laurenti Bellini. Francofurti et Lipsiae, sumptibus Johannis Grosii Viduae et haered., 1698; Willis J: Jodoci Willichii Exercitationes et probationes de urinis. Amstelodami, apud Joannem Wolters, 1688; Russum Io. A: Tractatus de urinis luculenter compilatus per Iohannem Andream Russum. Bruntruti, exc. Guil. Barbelley, 1623; Ulmus Io: Ioan. Francisci Ulmi de certa ratione iudicandi ex urinis librii quatuor. Venedis, apud Hier. Polum, 1578; De Marinis Dominico: Dissertatio philosophico-medica de re monstrosa a' capuccino Pisauri per urina excreta. Romae, typis Iacobi Mascardi, 1678; De indiciis urinarum tractatus ex probatis collectus authoribus. Venedis, 1542; Martinus H: Anatomia urinae Galeno-spagyrica Henrici Martini.
5. Fonseca R. Roderici a Fonseca De calculorum remediis qui in renibus et vesica gignunt. Romae, apud Io. Angelum Ruffinellum, 1586.
6. Coluzi F. Francisci Colutii veliterni De querelis nephriticis ex renum tractatus. Romae, typis Alexandri Zanetti, 1624.
7. Livonius Rectorius. De lapidis renum ac vesicae affectus curatione. Florentiae, ex tipographia Francisci Honuphrii, 1666.
8. Scarpa A. Saggio di osservazioni sui tagli retto-vescicale per l'estrazione della pietra della vescica. Pavia, 1823. Vaccà Berlinghieri A: Memoria sopra il metodo di estrarre la pietra dalla vescica orinaria per la via dell'intestino retto. Pavia, 1821. Vaccà Berlinghieri A: Memoria terza sul taglio retto vescicale. Pisa, 1823.
9. Ulmus Io. F. Ioan. Francisci Ulmi de certa ratione iudicandi ex urinis librii quatuor. Venetiis, apud Hier. Polum, 1578. Bellini L: De urinis et pulsibus opus Laurentii Bellini. Bononiae, ex typographia H.H. Antonj Pisarrii, 1683; Bellini L: De urinis et pulsibus Laurenti Bellini. Francofurti et Lipsiae, sumptibus Johannis Grosii Viduae et haered., 1698
10. Biblioteca Lancisiana, Ms. 255 LXXVI 3.2, pp. 648-734; Ms. 264 LXXVI 3.11, pp. 254-306, p. 635, p. 643. I want to thank Marco Fiorilla, who allowed me to read his still unpublished Ph. D. thesis. Fiorilla M: I consulti medici italiani di Giovanni Maria Lancisi, Ph.D. thesis.
11. The manuscript is not quoted by the 1770 Index. Bibliothecae Lancisianae Index aut. ex. Marchion. Ciojae praeceptoris, MDCCCXXXVII. The text of the "Tractatus De urinis" will be edited by V. Gazzaniga.
12. Biblioteca Lancisiana, Ms. 313. LXXVII, 3-7, Tractatus de urinis et Comment.a in Hippocratis Li. de prognosticis a Io. Ma. Lancisio sub annis MDCLXXXXVI et seq.ti adornata. The text is introduced, at p. 1, by a Praelectio de urinis habita a Io. Ma. Lancisio in Studiorum repetitione Prid. Idus Novembris Anni MDCLXXXXVII.
13. See Conte A (Ed.): I maestri della Sapienza di Roma dal 1514 al 1787..., see ref. 1.
14. Galen, On Natural powers II, Kuhn.
15. Lancisi Gio. Ma. Dissertatio de recta medicorum studiorum ratione instituenda. Romae, typis Jo. Mariae Salvioni, 1715.
16. Ms. 313, p. 13
17. Malpighi M: De viscerum structura exercitatio anatomica... Bononiae, ex typographia Jacobi Montii, 1666; Bellini L: Exercitatio anatomica de structura et usu renum. Florentiae, ex typographia sub signo Stellae, 1662; Bellini L: De structura renum observatio anatomica, et Jo. Alphonsi Borelli...de illorum usu judicium. Strassburg, S. Paullus, 1664. See Bertoloni Meli D: The new anatomy of Marcello Malpighi. In: Marcello Malpighi Anatomist and Physician. Firenze, L. Olschki, 1997, pp. 21-62.
18. Actually, only the first two kinds answer to the Paracelsian classification.
19. It is meant that their motion is not related to their weight or to gravity law. See Ms. 313, p. 32.
20. Lancisi suggests here a theory on the urine motion in the vessels answering to the general laws of the motion of heterogeneous fluids as formulated by A. Borelli, demonstrated by Malpighi's experiments on the circulation in the frogs and presented by R. Lower and W. Cole, physiologists in Oxford. The bulk of similar consistency liquids poured out at the same speed and simultaneously is in proportional ratio with the diameter square of the channels in which they flow. Substantially, in determining the excretion speed of the mineral waters, the max. blood speed and the min. cohesion of the ingested water particles operate jointly.
21. Ms. 313, p. 87.
22. Ibidem, p. 84.
23. Ibidem, p. 97. The must is a good example of a substance transforming into another one, during the processes of transformation which cause them to become wine, volatile salty, oily and sulphureous particles get free from their bonds and change into spirit. The same occurs in the urines: their particles change place, connections and modality of mutual adhesion during fermentation; salts volatilize and join to the phlegma. The loss of weight verified after fermentation is thus justified.
24. Ms. 313, pp. 101-2.
25. It can give rise to diabetes.
26. Borelli does not agree with the opinion that the fermentation phenomena can take place in the renal tubules because of their small dimension and, in replying to Bellini's theories in 1662, suggests the theory that tiny structures might be present acting as sponges and filters, at the moment undiscovered by the anatomical practice. See Bertoloni Meli D: The postumous dispute between Borelli and Malpighi. In: Marcello Malpighi Anatomist and Physician. Firenze, L. Olschki, 1997, pp. 247-275. In the same volume, Guerrini A: The varieties of mechanical medicine: Borelli, Malpighi, Bellini and Pitcairne, pp. 111-128 and Gòmez Lòpez S: Marcello Malpighi and atomism, pp. 175-189.
27. Bellini L. De urinis et pulsibus, de missione sanguinis, de febribus, de morbis capitis et pectoris, opus Laurenti Bellini dicatum Francisco Redi. Francofurti et Lipsiae, sumptibus Johannis Grosii, 1698, p. 8: "et primo urinam naturalem constare debere asserimus ex aqua communi, sale et terra insipida, sive tartaro".
28. Ibidem, p. 9: "non ita certum est, quicquid per operationes chymicas educitur e corporibus, extitisse in iisdem, quale educitur, cum per chymicas ignis praeparationes multa gigni possint, quae in compositis, ex quibus educuntur, non existebant..."
29. Conforti M. La chimica nella formazione del medico secondo G.M. Lancisi. Atti Tornata Fermana di Storia della Medicina 2002, in press. I want to thank Maria Conforti for having transmitted to me a series of data which are the corpus of her in itinere studies on iatrochemistry in Rome in Early Modern Age. A witness to the diffusion of atomism in Roman medical milieu, a manuscript work by G. Brasavola, will be published in a forthcoming issue of Medicina nei Secoli, 2003; 2, by Federica Favino. See also: Donato MP, L'onere della prova. Il Sant'Uffizio, l'atomismo e i medici romani. Nuncius 2003; XVIII, 1: 69-87.
30. Angeletti LR. et al. Giovanni Maria Lancisi e l'accademia che non c'è. See ref. 3.
31. Ms. 313, p. 83.