Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 562.5

FRANCESCO REDI (1626-1698) Osservazioni di Francesco Redi ... intorno agli animali viventi che si trovano negli animali viventi. P. Matini 1684 First Edition 4 p.l., 253 [i.e. 243] p. 26 pl. (part fold.) 25 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 561

After schooling with the Jesuits, he attended the University of Pisa. As a doctor, he became court physician to Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his successor, Cosimo III. His research gained him membership in Accademia dei Lincei. He is most well-known for his series of experiments, published in 1668 as Esperienze Intorno alla Generazione degl'Insetti (Experiments on the Generation of Insects) which is regarded as one of the first steps in refuting "spontaneous generation" - a theory also known as Aristotelian abiogenesis. At the time, prevailing wisdom was that maggots formed naturally from rotting meat. Redi’s major parasitological treatise, Ossenazioni intorno agli animali viventi. che si trovano negli animali viventi (1684), was an abundant compilation of endo-parasitic helminths found in the organs of different classes of animals, including mollusks and crustaceans. Jules Guiart, who in 1898 attempted to identify the parasites described by Redi, compiled a list of 108 items, two-thirds of which were endoparasitic helminths, and one-third cctoparasitic insects and acarids. In the 1684 Ossenazioni Redi also formulated the idea of an evolutionary cycle of parasitic worms.

See Related Record(s): 562 563 716 774

Cited references: Garrison & Morton 2448.1; Osler 3777; Waller 11939; Cushing R67; Wellcome IV p. 488; NLM 17th C. 9458

John Martin M.D. Endowment