SCARPA, AN'rONm, a celebrated anatomist. was born on June 13, 1747, at Castello Motta, a village in the Friuli. He was educated at Padua, where his ardor attracted the attention of the octogenarian Morgagni, who, having lost his sight shortly after the arrival of Scarpa at the university, engaged the young enthusiast as his secretary, and dictated to him in Latin the answers which he made to let ters soliciting his advice. The intervals between their medical studies were employed by Morgagni and Scarpa in the perusal of the Latin authors, and it is to this practice that we must ascribe the elegance that distinguished the scien tific style of Scarpa in his subsequent publications. In 1772 he was appointed professor of anatomy in Modena. He afterward visited France, Holland, and England; and while in London, was so enamored of John Minter's museum, that he did not rest until he had constructed a similar one at home. In 1783 he tilled the anatomical chair at Pavia. He made, in the following year, a journey throughout the greater part of and in the course of it acquired the experience that made him one of the greatest clinical surgeons in Europe. On his return to Pavia, he published in rapid suc cession treatises on the anatomy of the organs of smell and hearing; on the nerves of the heart, and on the minute anatomy of bone. These, especially that on the innerva
tion of the heart. which settled the question whether that vixens was supplied with nerves gave Searpa a European reputation. His work on the diseases of the eye, published in 1801, was followed in 1804 by his observations on the cure of aneurism But his greatest achievement Was his on hernia, published in 1809 llis reputation was now at its highest. but three years afterward, lie had to give lip the work of public teach ing, and entered. in 1814. on the office of director of the medical faculty of Pavia. His next puNieation was sonic valuable observations on the operation for stone. For the last years of his life he suffered from almost total blindness, until, on Oct. 30, 1832, he died at Pavia, of inflammation of the bladder. Searpa's merits as an observer, a teacher, and a writer were very great. Industrious. scholarly, artistic, he appeared to great advantage in nearly every subject he undertook.