Giovanni Battista MorgagniArticle Free Pass After graduating in
1701 at Bologna with degrees in philosophy and medicine,
Morgagni acted as prosector to A.M. Valsalva, whom he assisted
in preparing the latter’s celebrated De Aure Humana (1704;
Anatomy and Diseases of the Ear). Morgagni then succeeded
Valsalva in his position as anatomical demonstrator, but after a
time he gave up that post and spent several years in Padua,
where in 1710 he became professor of medicine. In 1715 he was
promoted to the chair of anatomy. Morgagni’s Adversaria
Anatomica (1706–19) established his reputation as an accurate
anatomist. It was not until 1761, however, that Morgagni
published his greatest work, De Sedibus et Causis Morborum per
Anatomen Indagatis (The Seats and Causes of Diseases
Investigated by Anatomy), which marked him as a founder of
morbid anatomy. The work treats the morbid conditions of the
entire body and contains records of 640 dissections. Although he
was the first to demonstrate the necessity of basing diagnos