Marcello Malpighi

MALPIGHI, Marcello (Marcello Malpighi, 1628–94), Italian physician, anatomist, and naturalist, creator of microscopic anatomy. Malpighi studied at the University of Bologna under the anatomist Massari, received his doctorate in medicine in 1653, and was successively professor of medicine in Bologna, Pisa, again in Bologna, Messina, once more in Bologna, and finally chief physician to Pope Innocent XII. Malpighi was an active pioneer in the fields of histology, embryology, and botany. The use of the microscope enabled him to make many anatomical and histological discoveries: his name is associated with the epidermal layer in vertebrates, the renal corpuscles, the splenic bodies, and the Malpighian tubules of insects. He is also credited with discovering the alveolar structure of the lungs and the connection of arteries with veins through capillaries, which Harvey, who discovered blood circulation, failed to prove. This discovery earned Malpighi many enemies among the adherents of the authority of Galen and Aristotle.

Along with Swammerdam, Malpighi can be considered the founder of invertebrate anatomy, which he initiated with his exemplary anatomy of the silkworm (Bombyx mori), prepared for the Royal Society of London, of which he was elected a member. Malpighi's second work for this society was devoted to the fine structure of plants. Malpighi pointed out that different parts of plants consist of microscopic sacs (utriculi) and tubes (vessels). Thus, the cellular structure of plants was discovered by him, although the significance of cells was not yet appreciated. Malpighi's other botanical works dealt with the external anatomy of plants. His works on the development of the chick in the egg were of great importance. His detailed descriptions, stage by stage, of the development of the chick from the moment the egg is laid until hatching far surpass the works of his predecessors on the same subject.