MALPIGHI, MARCELLO. 1628-1694.


Autograph Letter Signed ("Mario Malpighi") to an unnamed recipient addressed as "Ecc.mo Sig." ("Your Excellence"), discussing Sig. Adriano and thanking him for gifts, 2 pp, bifolium, 4to, Bologna, May 2, 1676, light foxing, old folds.Malpighi hopes that Sig Adriano will return to Bologna soon, so that he can benefit from his teachings and share his own observations with him. Malpighi mentions he is unable to leave Bologna with the large number of sick people he is caring for. "Malpighi's greatest scientific contribution was his demonstration, in 1661, of capillary circulation in the lung, which provided the 'missing link, in Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood — an anatomical connection between the arterial and venous circulations" (W. Bruce Fye in Grolier Club One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine, 1995, p 115). Accompanied by a steel engraved portrait by William Holl (1838).