Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 736

GIORGIO BAGLIVI (1668?-1707?) De praxi medica ad priscam observandi rationem revocandi. Typis D. A. Herculis 1696 [20] 259, 119 pp., plates. 15.9 cm.

Although Baglivi died at a comparatively young age, he was a master clinician with a wide circle of influence among colleagues in practice, students, and patients. He was also a man of uncommon logic and common sense who wrote, "Let the young know that they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself" (Preface). And, "To study medicine, it is necessary to compare disease with disease, moment with moment, and man with man, and to abandon forever those interminable discussions and logomachies, for which I find no other explanation than the anger of an outraged and avenging God who has inflicted them on man" (Preface). Like Borelli (see No. 496), Baglivi was a leader in the Iatrophysical School and devoted much time to experimental physiology. This small volume is the work for which Baglivi is usually remembered. Book II contains the famous description of Marcello Malpighi's last illness and death, Malpighi having been Baglivi's teacher and colleague. Baglivi performed a postmortem examination of the body of Malpighi showing that death was caused by an acute spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage.

See Related Record(s): 496

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 68 (1704 ed.); Wellcome II, p. 84 (later eds.)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.