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| Italian
physiologist who made many anatomical discoveries in his pioneering microscope
studies of animal and plant tissues. For example, he discovered blood capillaries
and indentified the sensory receptors (papillae) of the tongue, which he
thought could be nerve endings. Malpighi was born in Crevalcore, near Bologna, and studied at Bologna. He first lectured in logic at Bologna, and although he was professor of theoretical medicine at Pisa 1656-59 and at Messina 1662-66, he returned to Bologna in between. In 1667, the Royal Society in England made him an honorary member and supervised the printing of his later works. In 1691, Malpighi moved to Rome and retired there as chief physician to Pope Innocent XII. Studying the lungs of a frog, Malpighi found them to consist of thin membranes containing fine blood vessels covering vast numbers of small air sacs. This discovery made it easier to explain how air (oxygen) seeps from the lungs to the blood vessels and is carried around the body. He also investigated the anatomy of insects and found the tracheae, the branching tubes that open to the outside in the abdomen and supply the insect with oxygen for respiration. |