Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771): his anatomic majesty's contributions to the neurosciences

Abstract

It is the contributions of such early pioneers as Morgagni that our current understanding of the neurosciences is based.

250 years after Morgagni (1682-1771), author of the masterpiece De Sedibus et Causis Morborum, and his contributions to neurology development / 250 anos depois de Morgagni (1682-1771), autor da obra-prima De Sedibus et Causis Morborum, e de suas contribuições para o desenvolvimento da neurologia

“…In 1707 moved to Venice and worked with the anatomist Giovanni Domenico Santorini (1681-1737). In 1715 was appointed as the first chair of anatomy at the University of Padua 3,4 .…”

“…He was inspired by ideas from masters as Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723) and Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) and established a disruptive landmark in medical thought at the time, then based on the theory of humors proposed by Hippocrates and Galen 3,5 , that claimed that the diseases would result from the imbalance of the four humors of the organism (blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile) 3,5 . In his masterpiece De Sedibus et Causis Morborum per Anatomen Indagatis 2 he elaborates the modern concept of anatomopathology, in which the anatomical study is a tool to identify the seat and the causes of diseases.…”

“…In the book I of the first volume 5 , Of Disorders of the Head, elucidated conditions such as headache, epilepsy, hydrocephalus, subdural and epidural hematoma, skull fractures, ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, aneurysms cerebral, subarachnoid hemorrhage, vascular dissections, brain tumors, venous thrombosis, spinal injuries, among other 4,5 , and he was the first to demonstrate brain injuries causing contralateral palsy 3 . He found brain abnormalities such as hyperemia and hydrocephalus in patient with epilepsy and introduced the use of trepanation to treat patients with large hematomas 4 .…”

“…Morgagni started a new era in medicine that contributed to the birth of neurology, through the description of several anatomical alterations of neurological diseases, and also through the foundation of the anatomoclinical method, essential for neurology development. Morgagni's works strengthened the relationship between diagnosis, treatment and anatomic changes, establishing the anatomoclinical method on a more solid basis 3,6 . Until today, neurological diagnoses remain firmly anchored in the correlation between clinical signs and focal lesions¹.…”