Francesco Puccinotti was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 pathologist.

Puccinotti was born in Urbino

Urbino

Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...

 and started his career as the main doctor in Recanati

Recanati

Recanati is a town and comune in the Province of Macerata, Marche region of Italy. Recanati was founded around 1150 AD from three pre-existing castles. In 1290 it proclaimed itself an independent republic and, in the 15th century, was famous for its international fair...

 but moved on to Macerata

Macerata

Macerata is a city and comune in central Italy, the capital of the province of Macerata in the Marche region.The historical city center is located on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza rivers. It consisted of the Picenes city named Ricina, then, after the romanization, Recina and Helvia Recina...

 where he became the director of the civil hospital. He went on to teach the history of medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 at the universities of Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

 and Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. He was briefly named to the Italian Senate

Italian Senate

The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...

 after the Risorgimento

Italian unification

Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...

.

Puccinotti wrote an influential history of - his "Storia delle Medicina" (History of Medicine) - and "Patologia induttiva preposta a nuovo organo della scienza medica", an early book on the significance of pathology to medicine. He also did some of the early research into bioelectricity in warm-blooded

Warm-blooded

The term warm-blooded is a colloquial term to describe animal species which have a relatively higher blood temperature, and maintain thermal homeostasis primarily through internal metabolic processes...

 animals.

Puccinotti died in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 and was buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

External links

• Some places and memories of Francesco Puccinotti
• Full text scans at Google Books
  • Storia della medicina, Volume 2, Part 2 (1855)

Additional sources

• W.F.Bynum and Helen Bynum, Dictionary of medical biography, Greenwood Press, Westport (CT) 2007, vol. 4, p. 1036.
• Norma Olin Ireland, Index to Scientists of the World from Ancient to Modern Times. Boston: F.W. Faxon Co., 1962.