Makers of Modern MedicineWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
Makers of Modern Medicine
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Medicine -- Biography
Morgagni's society was called the Academia Inquietorum--"The Academy
of the Restless"--the idea of the curious name being that the members
were not satisfied to rest peacefully in the knowledge to be gleaned
from the older authors, but preferred to get at science for themselves
by direct observation and planned experiment. Morgagni's idea in
founding the society seems to have been premature. The fate of the
Academy of the Restless is involved in some obscurity, but biographers
seem to hint that it failed of its purpose. Neither the university nor
the times were yet ready for such freedom of thought as this. Even in
our own day such a scheme would be considered radical and chimerical.
The discouragement met with finally led to the abandonment of the
meetings, and Morgagni gave up his attempt to inspire others with his
own industry and enthusiasm for original investigation in the physical
sciences.
For some years after this he seems to have been absent from Bologna.
His time was spent especially at the medical schools of the great
universities of Pisa and of Padua. Students who wished to make some
special branch of medicine such as physiology, or anatomy, or the,
then as yet scarcely known, science of pathology, their prime object
in life, had to visit various universities in order to find
opportunity and {39} suggestion for study. Morgagni devoted himself so
faithfully to his work that his eyesight failed him for a time and
very probably his general health also. For some years he returned to
his native town to recuperate. Here he took up the active practice of
medicine. As so often happens, this period of rest after years of
study proved especially broadening in its influence upon Morgagni.
After his rest his contemporaries begin to realize his great
possibilities as a scientist.
His first publication was a series of notes on anatomy. These were
published in the form of collected essays, with the title _Adversaria
Anatomica_. The title has a pugnacious sound, but Morgagni did not
indulge in controversy and _adversaria_ is only the Latin name for
note-books. The first articles thus collected were really
communications made by Morgagni to the "Academy of the Restless"
during his presidency of that body. This opened his career as a
writer, and it is interesting to note that his last book was to be
published some sixty-three years later--a period of fecund authorship
almost unprecedented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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