Alessandro Riberi (

Stroppo Stroppo is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region of Piedmont, located about southwest of Turin and about northwest of Cuneo. Stroppo borders the following municipalities: Elva, Macra, Marmora, Prazzo and Samp ...

, 24 April 1794 –

Cuneo Cuneo (; ; ; ) is a city and in Piedmont, Italy, the capital of the province of Cuneo, the fourth largest of Italy’s provinces by area. It is located at 550 metres (1,804 ft) in the south-west of Piedmont, at the confluence of the ri ...

, 18 November 1861) was a surgeon, physician, academic and Italian politician. He was considered to be the most distinguished Italian physician of his time. He founded the Italian army medical corps.

Biography

Alessandro Riberi was born on 24 April 1794 in

. He graduated at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

in Surgery in 1815 and then in Medicine at the

University of Genoa The University of Genoa () is a public research university. It is one of the largest universities in Italy and it is located in the city of Genoa, on the Italian Riviera in the Liguria region of northwestern Italy. The original university was fou ...

in 1817. In 1820 he became assistant in the clinic of San Giovanni Hospital. In 1822 he was appointed assistant surgeon and anatomic engraver in the same hospital. In the same year he was named major surgeon by King Charles Felix. In 1826 he became operative surgery and obstetrics professor and then he founded the Laboratory of

Anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

and Surgery. When Charles Albert became the

King of Sardinia Sardinia is traditionally known to have been initially ruled by the Nuragic civilization, which was followed by Greek colonization, conquest by the Carthagians, Carthaginians, and occupied by the Ancient Rome, Romans for around a thousand years, ...

in 1831, Riberi was appointed surgeon of the Royal House. In 1843 he was named president of the Major Military Council of Health and he founded the ''Giornale di Medicina Militare''. He successfully support enaction of a law requiring all military physicians to be surgeons as well. He introduced the use of anesthesia in hospitals. In 1848 he was appointed member of the Council of

Dronero Dronero () is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about southwest of Turin and about northwest of Cuneo at the entrance of the Valle Maira. Main sights *''Ponte Vecchio'', also known as ' ...

and the next year he became a member of the

Italian Senate The Senate of the Republic (), or simply the Senate ( ), is the upper house of the bicameral Italian Parliament, the lower house being the Chamber of Deputies. The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform iden ...

. In 1848 he became counselor of the king and then member of the Superior Council of Education. In 1849 he went to Oporto to cure his dying friend Charles Albert. He was a member of the Superior Council of Health, board of directors of the clinic of San Giovanni Hospital, the Work of Motherhood Administration and of Charity General Hospice in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

. He was also a member of the French

Académie nationale de médecine Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institu ...

, the St. Petersburg Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy, the Accademia Fisio-Medico-Statistica di Milano, Marsiglia Academic Society of Medicine, and the Barcelona and Lisbon Medical Societies. He was president of the faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the

. He was a skillful surgeon. Riberi's students could admire his safety, his calm, his foresight and his orderliness during surgical operations. In 1861 he tried to treat in vain

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri (; 10 August 1810 – 6 June 1861), generally known as the Count of Cavour ( ; ) or simply Cavour, was an Italian politician, statesman, businessman, economist, and no ...

. He never married. In the last years of his life he opened a pathological museum in San Giovanni Hospital in which he had been surgeon for thirty-five years. He renounced his salary to improve the hospital. He died in 1861 as a result of entero rheumatic peritonitis. He is buried in the Monumental Cemetery of

Selected works

Riberi was a prolific writer. Some of his treatises have been digitized, including: Sulla cancrena contagiosa; o, Nosocomiale con alcune cenni sopra una risipola contagiosa (1820) Trattato di blefarottalmo-terapia operativa (1836) Dei seni e delle fistole in genere e delle principali malattie delle vie lagrimali colle operazioni che le ragguardano (1832)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riberi, Alessandro Deputies of Legislature I of the Kingdom of Sardinia Italian surgeons Academic staff of the University of Genoa People from the Kingdom of Sardinia 1794 births 1861 deaths 19th-century Italian politicians Recipients of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Italian military doctors