Filippo Pacini
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221156005
2008-06-23T08:07:42Z
Ian Spackman
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Quick-adding category "People from Pistoia" (using [[WP:HOTCAT|HotCat]])
{{Infobox Scientist
|box_width =
|name = Filippo Pacini
|image = Filippo Pacini 1870.jpg
|image_size =
|caption =
|birth_date = 1812-05-25
|birth_place = [[Pistoia]], [[Tuscany]]
|death_date = 1883-07-09
|death_place = [[Florence]]
|residence = [[Florence]]
|citizenship = [[Italy|Italian]]
|nationality = [[Italy|Italian]]
|ethnicity = [[Italy|Italian]]
|fields = Anatomy
|workplaces = Institute of Human Anatomy <br />[[Florence]] Lyceum <br />[[University of Florence]] [[Istituto di Studi Superiori]]
|alma_mater = [[Pistoia]]
|doctoral_advisor = [[Paolo Savi]]
|academic_advisors =
|doctoral_students =
|notable_students =
|known_for = [[Pacinian corpuscles]] <br />[[Vibrio cholerae]]
|author_abbrev_bot =
|author_abbrev_zoo =
|influences =
|influenced =
|awards =
|religion = [[Roman Catholic]]
|signature = <!--(filename only)-->
|footnotes =
}}
[[Image:Filippo pacini cholera discovery.gif|thumb|400px|right|This microscope slide, prepared by Pacini in 1854, was clearly identified as containing the cholera bacillus.]]
'''Filippo Pacini''' ([[May 25]], [[1812]]–[[July 9]], [[1883]]) was an [[Italy|Italian]] [[anatomist]], posthumously famous for isolating the [[cholera]] bacillus ''[[Vibrio cholerae]]'' in [[1854]], well before [[Robert Koch]]'s more widely accepted discoveries thirty years later.
Pacini was born in [[Pistoia]], [[Tuscany]] to a humble family, but was given a religious education in hopes that he would become a bishop. However, in 1830 he was given a scholarship to the venerable medical school in Pistoia. He learned his trade as a physician, and learned to dissect and examine bodies with a microscope.
In 1831, during a dissection class, Pacini discovered small sensory organs in the [[nervous system]] which can detect pressure and vibrations. He studied them closely from 1833 on, and first discussed them in 1835 at the "Società medico-fisica" in Florence, but did not publish his research ("Nuovi organi scoperti nel corpo umano") until 1840. Within just a few years, the work was widely known in Europe and the bodies had become known as [[Pacinian corpuscles]].
He served as an assistant to [[Paolo Savi]] in [[Pisa]] from 1840 to 1843, then began working at the Institute of Human Anatomy. In 1847 Pacini began teaching at the Lyceum in Florence, and then was named chair of General and Topographic Anatomy at the "Istituto di Studi Superiori" at the [[University of Florence]] in 1849, where he remained to the end of his career.
The [[Asiatic Cholera Pandemic of 1846-63]] which swept through Florence in 1845–1846 brought the disease to the center of Pacini's attention. In 1854 he described the disease in a paper called "Microscopical observations and pathological deductions on cholera", but because of the prevailing belief of Italian scientists in the [[miasma theory of disease]], the work was not noted by others until many years after his death, despite additional publications in 1865, 1866, 1871, 1876, and 1880 which identified the cause of the disease's lethality, and even proposed some effective treatments. [[John Snow (physician)|John Snow]], who disproved the miasma theory, and [[Robert Koch]], widely credited with the discovery of the bacillum thirty years later, were unaware of his previous work.
When Koch, a much more widely respected scientist who had previously identified the [[tuberculosis]] bacillus, presented his findings to the Cholera Commission of the Imperial Health Office in Berlin in 1884, the commission congratulated him, but also recognized Pacini's previous discovery of the bacterium. In 1965, the international committee on nomenclature adopted the formal name ''Vibrio cholerae Pacini 1854'' to honor his work.
During his career Pacini also published several studies on the retina of the human eye, the electric organs in electric fishes, the structure of bone, and the mechanics of respiration.
Pacini did not marry, and spent most of the money remaining after his scientific investigation on the long term care of his two ailing sisters. He died nearly penniless in Florence on [[July 9]], [[1883]], and was buried in the cemetery of the Misericordia. In 1935 his remains were transferred to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, along with the remains [[Atto Tigri]] and [[Filippo Civinini]], two other noted anatomists.
==References==
* [http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html UCLA: Who first discovered cholera?]
* [http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2605.html Who Named It: Filippo Pacini]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pacini, Filippo}}
[[Category:Italian anatomists]]
[[Category:Italian microbiologists]]
[[Category:1812 births]]
[[Category:1883 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Pistoia]]
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