MALPIGHI, MARCELLO Italian physiolo gist, was born on March io, 1628, at Crevalcuore near Bologna, where he graduated in medicine in 1653 and where he became lecturer in 1656. A few months later he was appointed to the chair of theoretical medicine at Pisa, but after four years he returned to Bologna. In 1662 his friend, Borelli, secured his ap pointment as professor primaries at Messina. After a further four years he again returned to his native university, and spent the next twenty-five years there. In 1691 he removed to Rome as pri vate physician to Innocent XII., and he died there of apoplexy on Nov. 3o, 1694. Shortly before his death, he drew up a long account of his academical and scientific labours, correspondence and controversies, and committed it to the charge of the Royal Society of London, which published his autobiography in 1696.
Malpighi was one of the first to apply the microscope to the study of animal and vegetable structure; and his discoveries were so important that he may be considered to be the founder of microscopic anatomy. Although Harvey had correctly inferred the existence of the capillary circulation, he had never seen it; it was reserved for Malpighi in 1661 (four years after Harvey's death) to see for the first time the blood coursing through a net work of small tubes on the surface of the lung and of the dis tended urinary bladder of the frog. This discovery was given to the world in two letters De Pulmonibus, addressed to Borelli, pub lished at Bologna in 1661 (often reprinted). These letters con tained also the first account of the vesicular structure of the human lung, and they made a theory of respiration for the first time possible. Malpighi's next achievement was a demonstration of the plan of structure of secreting glands. He maintained that the
secretion was formed in terminal acini standing in open communi cation with the ducts. The name of Malpighi is still associated with his discovery of the mucous character of the lower stratum of the epidermis, of the vascular coils in the cortex of the kidney, and of the follicular bodies in the spleen. He was the first to attempt the finer anatomy of the brain, and described the distri bution of grey matter and of the fibre-tracts in the cord, with their extensions to the cerebrum and cerebellum with great ac curacy; but from his microscopic study of the grey matter he concluded that it was of glandular structure and that it secreted the "vital spirits." At an early period he applied himself to vege table histology, and became acquainted with the spiral vessels of plants in 1662. His Anatomic plantarum published in 1672 included the Observations de ovo incubato, which gave one of the best accounts (with good plates) of the development of the chick. His Diss. epist. de bombyce (1669) elaborately described the structure and metamorphosis of the silk-worm.
Malpighi also wrote Epistolae anatomicae Marc. Malpighii et Car. Fracassati (Amsterdam, 1662) (on the tongue, brain, skin, omentum, etc.) ; De viscerum structura: exercitatio anatomica (London, 1669) ; De structura glandularum conglobatarum (London, 1689) ; • Opera posthuma, et vita a seipso scripta (London, 1697) with preface and additions, was published at Amsterdam in 1700. An edition containing all his works except the last two was published in London in 1686.