Giuseppe Albini was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

and physician, born in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

on 27 September 1827. He died in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) 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. Th ...

on 18 January 1911..

Biography

In 1845, he began his medical studies in

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the cap ...

, where he attended

Bartolomeo Panizza Bartolomeo Panizza (August 17, 1785 – April 17, 1867) was an Italian anatomist born in Vicenza. He received a medical degree in surgery from Padua, and furthered his studies at Bologna and Pavia. In 1809 he became a professor at the Univ ...

's anatomy courses. Expelled from Pavia for having taken part in the Springtime of the Peoples of 1848, he took part in the

Five Days of Milan The Five Days of Milan ( ) was an insurrection and a major event in the Revolutionary Year of 1848 that started the First Italian War of Independence. On 18 March, a rebellion arose in the city of Milan, and in five days of street fighting ...

and the battle of Novara. Following these events, he went to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where he completed his medical studies and graduated in 1852. He became the student and then assistant of

Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke Ernst Wilhelm Ritter von Brücke (6 July 1819 – 7 January 1892) was a German physician and physiologist. He is credited with contributions made in many facets of physiology. Biography He was born Ernst Wilhelm Brücke in Berlin. He graduat ...

, professor of physiology at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

. He then left for

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

, where he followed the lectures of Brücke's friend,

Emil du Bois-Reymond Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (7 November 181826 December 1896) was a German physician and physiologist, the co-discoverer of nerve action potential, and the developer of experimental electrophysiology. Life Du Bois-Reymond was born in Berlin a ...

, and

Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (19 April 1795 – 27 June 1876) was a German naturalist, zoologist, comparative anatomist, geologist, and microscopist. Ehrenberg was an evangelist and was considered to be of the most famous and productive sci ...

. Thereafter went to

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hall ...

, and

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Nethe ...

. In October 1857, he was named professor of physiology at the

University of Krakow The Jagiellonian University (Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...

. In 1859, Lombardy was liberated from the Austrians following the : Giuseppe Albini, despite his important position at the University of Krakow, resigned and returned to Italy to work as a natural history teacher at the secondary school of

Casale Monferrato Casale Monferrato () is a town in the Piedmont region of Italy, in the province of Alessandria. It is situated about east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Beyond the river lies the ...

. In January 1860, he was appointed professor of physiology in Parma and in October of the same year, at the suggestion of , he was hired by the University of Naples, where in February 1861 he became director of the Institute of Physiology, a position he held until 1905. On 27 October 1877 he was elected foreign honorary member of the . He died in Turin on 18 January 1911 and was buried in the chapel of , near

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps has m ...

Works

Giuseppe Albini was particularly interested in optics and chemistry and published articles on glandular secretions, embryology, and nerve physiology. He described small fibrous nodules on the margins of the mitral and tricuspid valves of the heart, residues of fetal tissue, which now bear his name: Albini's nodules.

Works (selection)

''Ricerche sul veleno della salamandra maculata''
(1854)
''Lezioni di embriologia''
(1867)
''Trattato delle funzioni riproduttive e d'embriologia''
(1868)
''Sull'istruzione superiore e sull'ordinamento degli studj di medicina e di chirurgia''
third edition (1882)

Translations

* G. Hermann Meyer
''Trattato di anatomia fisiologica umana''
(1867)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Albini, Giuseppe 19th-century Italian physicians 20th-century Italian physicians 1827 births 1911 deaths Italian physiologists