. FONTANA (FELix), a distinguished physiolo gist and experimental philosopher, was born 15th April 1730, at Pomarolo, a little town in the Tyrol.
He began his studies at the neighbouring city of Roveredo, and continued them in the schools of Ve rona and Parma, and afterwards in the universi ties of Padua and Bologna. He then visited Rome, and went to Florence, where he obtained from the Emperor Francis I. who was at that time Grand Duke of Tuscany, the appointment of Professor of Philosophy at Pisa; but the Grand Duke Peter Leopold, who was also afterwards Emperor, invited him to settle at Florence, and gave him an establish ment connected with his household, as Fisico or na turalist, and as Director of the Cabinet of Natural History, which was afterwards rendered, by his ex ertions, one of the principal ornaments of the city of Florence.
Fontana became the author of many well known works on physiology, natural philosophy, and che mistry. In 1757, he was engaged in an investiga tion, tending to confirm the doctrines of Haller re specting the irritability of the muscles, considered as a distinct quality inherent in those organs. Hal ler has published several of his letters as a part of his own Memoires sur les parties sensibles et irritables ; and the subject has afforded to Fontana the materials of several successive essays. 1. De irritabilitatis le. gibus nunc primum sancitts. Atti di Sienna, Vol. III. p. 209. (1767.) 2. Ricerche filo:eche soya la fisica animate. 4. Flor. 1775. This volume contains only the Essay on the Laws of Irritability, stating, first, the general outline of the doctrine, then enter ing into the different intensity of the property of ir ritability, and its loss by exhaustion or by inactivity, and discussing the action of the heart, and the peculia rities of the death occasioned by electricity. 3. An other link of the same chain of investigation is found in the earlier publication De' moti dell' iride. 8. Lucca, 1765 ; showing that the contraction of the pupil de pends on the effect of light falling on the retina, and not on the iris itself, and establishing an analogy be tween the motions of the uvea, and the semivoluntary actions of the muscles of respiration. 4. One of the
most important of Fontana's works is his Ricerche ,fisiche sopra '1 veleno della vipera. 8. Lucca, 1767 ; containing an immense multitude of experiments, calculated to show that the poison of the viper acts by mixing with the blood, and destroying the irrita bility of the muscles to which it is conveyed, but that the bite of the European viper, though fatal to small animals, is scarcely ever capable of producing any immediately dangerous effects on the human frame. 5. The same matter was republished, with many additions, in the Traite sur le venin de la vi 14re, sur les poisons Americains, sur le laurier-cerise, et sur quelques autres poisons. 2 v. 4. Flor. 1781. Germ. Berl. 1787, together with some observations on the primitive structure of the animal body, expe riments on the reproduction of the nerves, and re marks on the anatomy of the eye. 6. In 1766, our author published an essay entitled Nuove osservazi oni sopra i globetti rossi del sangue. 8. Lucca ; con futing the assertions which had lately been advanced by Della Torre, respecting the complicated struc ture and changes of form of the globules of the blood. 8. In the next year Osservazioni sopra la ruogine del grand. 8. Lucca, 1767, describing an animalcule like an eel, to which he attributes the rust of coin, but which has not always been found by subsequent observers in similar cases, perhaps for want of an accurate distinction of the disease in tended. 9. There is also a Lettre sur l'ergot. Journ. Phys. VII. p. 42. 10. The Letters sopra le Idatidi e le Tenie. Opuscoli Scelti. VI. p. 108. Milan, 1783, contains an account of the hydatids which produce the symptoms of vertigo in sheep. 12. A Lettre M. • e ", Journ. Phys. VII. p. 285, contains some re marks on the circulation of the sap in plants. 13. In an essay, Sur le Tremelia, Journ. Phys. VII. p. 47, a zoophyte of a green colour, described by A danson and others as a plant, is shown to consist of a mul titude of little animals in continual motion.