MORGAGNI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA , Italian anatomist, was born on Feb. 25, 1682 at For11. After graduating in 1701 at Bologna in philosophy and medicine, he acted as prosector to A. M. Valsalva (one of the distinguished pupils of Malpighi), whom he assisted in preparing his cele brated Anatomy and Diseases of the Ear (1704). When Val salva was transferred to Parma, Morgagni succeeded to his ana tomical demonstratorship, but after a time gave up his post and spent two or three years at Padua, where in 1710 he succeeded his friend, Domenico Guglielmini, as professor of medicine. In 1715 he was promoted to the chair of anatomy in which he enjoyed a stipend that was increased from time to time by vote of the senate until it reached 1,200 gold ducats. He was hon oured by various academies, by cardinals and popes, and was elected patron of the German students of the university. Mor gagni died at Padua on Dec. 6, 1771.
Although his Adversaria anatomica (1706-19) had established his reputation as an accurate anatomist, it was not until 1761, when he was in his eightieth year, that he brought out the great work which made pathological anatomy a science, and diverted the course of medicine into new channels of exactness—the De Sedibus et causis morborum per anatomem indagatis (often re printed, Eng. trs. 1769). It treats of the morbid conditions of
the body a capite ad calcem, and contains records of some 64o dissections, the symptoms during the course of the malady and other antecedent circumstances being always prefixed with more or less fullness. Although he was the first to demonstrate the abso lute necessity of basing diagnosis, prognosis and treatment on a comprehensive knowledge of anatomical conditions, he made no attempt to exalt pathological anatomy into a science discon nected from clinical medicine and remote from practical needs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Morgagni's collected works were published at Venice in 5 vols. in 1765. His biography was published by Mosca at Naples in 1768. See also prefix to Tissot's 1779 edition of the De Sensibus.