Domenico Bertoloni Meli is a professor of history and philosophy of science at Indiana University and author of Thinking with Objects: The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century, also published by Johns Hopkins.

The strength of Meli's work lies in his attention to detail in highly complex Latin works, and in his sensitivity to unpublished work, correspondence, diaries, and above all, to the technologies of illustration. -- William Poole Times Higher Education Distinguished as this work was, in Mechanism, Experiment, Disease Domenico Bertoloni Meli maintains there is a great deal more to Marcello Malpighi. In this new book-part biography, part intellectual history of anatomy (the philosophy and mechanics of the body), and part history of medicine in the 17th century-Bertoloni Meli tells readers why. What he does wonderfully is to locate Malpighi as a practicing physician during Italy's scientific revolution. Bertoloni Meli conveys the excitement of the new science, voices the tumult that ensued as opposing schools of thought clashed, and reminds readers that priority disputes are nothing new. JAMA Bertoloni Meli makes great use of Malpighi's wonderful epistolary consultations to remind readers that boundaries between research and practice have been drawn too sharply by historians. His use of overlooked medical correspondence increases the presence of Malpighi, the medical practitioner, working from bench to bedside four centuries before translational research hit the headlines. -- Helen Bynum JAMA The most comprehensive account to date of the works of Marcello Malpighi. -- Stephanie Eichberg The British Journal for the History of Science Bertoloni Meli's book is a very valuable and welcome contribution to the ongoing reassessment of the Scientific Revolution as a manifold process that involved all areas of natural knowledge-from physics to medicine-and reconfigured each and their mutual relations. -- Maria Pia Donato Isis Among the many lessons to be taken from Domenico Bertoloni Meli's carefully researched, persuasive and, at times, beautifully rendered book is that the life sciences in the early modern period must be studied with an eye to the history of science, medicine and philosophy... There is too much to praise and to learn from Meli's book to do it justice in a short review such as this. For several years now his work has represented a vital and inspiring force in the history medicine, and Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy in particular will enliven the study of early modern medicine in ways we cannot pretend to anticipate. But one thing we are confident about is that Meli's latest book should shape the new work to be done on eighteenth-century notions of mechanism, the emergence of pathology, and the history of visualization and its practices. -- Cynthia Klestinec and Gideon Manning Metascience

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Anatomy, Medicine, and the New Philosophy1. Anatomical Research in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century2. Malpighi's Role on the Anatomical Stage3. Medical Locations: The Sites of Malpighi's Work4. Mechanism and Mechanics5. Experiment and Collaboration6. Disease and Anatomy7. Structure and OrganizationPart I: The Rise of Mechanistic and Microscopic Anatomy: Malpighi's Formation and Association with Borelli1. The New Anatomy, the Lungs, and Respiration1.1. Changing Anatomical Horizons1.2. Malpighi's Bologna Apprenticeship: Anatomical Venues and Vivisection1.3. Malpighi's Pisa Apprenticeship: Microscopy and the New Philosophy1.4. Malpighi's Epistolae on the Lungs1.5. The Purpose of Respiration: Thruston, Lower, and Hooke2. Epidemic Fevers and the Challenge to Galenism2.1. Galenic Traditions and New Medical Thinking2.2. Borelli and the Sicilian Epidemics of 1647–482.3. Borelli, Malpighi, and the Pisa Epidemics of 16612.4. The 1665 Controversy between the Neoterics and the Galenists2.5. Malpighi's Risposta to Galenistarum triumphus3. The Anatomy of the Brain and of the Sensory Organs3.1. Atomism and the Anatomy of the Senses3.2. Brain Research in the 1660s: Willis, Steno, and Malpighi3.3. Malpighi's Anatomical Findings on Taste and Touch3.4. Fracassati's Far-Reaching Investigations3.5. Bellini and Rossetti: Atomistic Anatomy of Taste and TouchPart II: Secretion and the Mechanical Organization of the Body: Glands as the Centerpiece of Malpighi's Investigations4. The Glandular Structure of the Viscera4.1. The Revival of Glands4.2. Changing Perceptions on Glands: Glisson, Wharton, and Steno4.3. Malpighi's Treatise on the Liver4.4. The Brain and the Cerebral Cortex4.5. The Kidneys: Bellini and Malpighi4.6. The Spleen and Its Problems5. Fat, Blood, and the Body's Organization5.1. The Necessity of Matter and the Animal's Benefit5.2. Descartes on Fat, Blood, and Nutrition5.3. Malpighi on Fat and Its Philosophical Implications5.4. Blood Transfusions5.5. Malpighi on Heart Polyps and the Nature of Blood6. The Structure of Glands and the Problem of Secretion6.1. Different Perspectives on Glands6.2. Intestinal Glands and Their Implications6.3. The Mode of Operation of Glands6.4. Glands in the Theatre: Bellini, Sbaraglia, and Malpighi6.5. Nuck's New Taxonomy of GlandsPart III: Between Anatomy and Natural History: Malpighi andthe Royal Society7. The Challenge of Insects7.1. Changing Perceptions on Insects7.2. Redi: Experiments and Generation7.3. Malpighi: Historia and Anatomy7.4. Swammerdam: Metamorphosis and Classification7.5. Swammerdam and Malpighi: Microstructure and Iconography8. Generation and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg8.1. Generation and Its Problems8.2. Harvey: Epigenesis and the Role of the Faculties8.3. The Organs of Generation and the Problem of Fecundation8.4. Swammerdam and the Amsterdam Circle on Preformation8.5. Malpighi and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg9. The Anatomy of Plants9.1. Plants between Anatomy and Natural History9.2. Malpighi's Anatomy of Plants: Structure, Iconography, and Experiment9.3. Trionfetti, Malpighi, Cestoni, and the Vegetation of Plants9.4. Grew and Camerarius: Iconography, "OEconomy," and SexualReproductionPart IV: Anatomy, Pathology, and Therapy: Malpighi's Posthumous Writings10. The Fortunes of Malpighi's Mechanistic Anatomy10.1. Mechanistic Anatomy and Malpighi's Vita10.2. Writing about the Self10.3. Levels of Mechanical Explanation in Borelli and Malpighi10.4. Paolo Mini and the Soul-Body Problem10.5. Ruysch's Challenge and Boerhaave11. From the New Anatomy to Pathology and Therapy11.1. A Bologna Controversy and Its Wider Implications11.2. Sbaraglia's Challenge to Malpighi's Research11.3. Malpighi: The Medical Signifi cance of the New Anatomy11.4. Sbaraglia's Empiricism and Methodological Concerns11.5. Young Morgagni's Covert Intervention12. Medical Consultations12.1. Between Theory and Practice, Carnival and Lent12.2. Publishing Malpighi's Consultations12.3. Structure and Contents of Malpighi's Consultations12.4. Curing with the Pen: Francesco Redi12.5. A Broader Look at Medical Consultations: Vallisneri and MorgagniEpilogueList of AbbreviationsNotesReferencesIndex

Domenico Bertoloni Meli is a professor of history and philosophy of science at Indiana University and author of Thinking with Objects: The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century, also published by Johns Hopkins.

The strength of Meli's work lies in his attention to detail in highly complex Latin works, and in his sensitivity to unpublished work, correspondence, diaries, and above all, to the technologies of illustration. -- William Poole Times Higher Education Distinguished as this work was, in Mechanism, Experiment, Disease Domenico Bertoloni Meli maintains there is a great deal more to Marcello Malpighi. In this new book-part biography, part intellectual history of anatomy (the philosophy and mechanics of the body), and part history of medicine in the 17th century-Bertoloni Meli tells readers why. What he does wonderfully is to locate Malpighi as a practicing physician during Italy's scientific revolution. Bertoloni Meli conveys the excitement of the new science, voices the tumult that ensued as opposing schools of thought clashed, and reminds readers that priority disputes are nothing new. JAMA Bertoloni Meli makes great use of Malpighi's wonderful epistolary consultations to remind readers that boundaries between research and practice have been drawn too sharply by historians. His use of overlooked medical correspondence increases the presence of Malpighi, the medical practitioner, working from bench to bedside four centuries before translational research hit the headlines. -- Helen Bynum JAMA The most comprehensive account to date of the works of Marcello Malpighi. -- Stephanie Eichberg The British Journal for the History of Science Bertoloni Meli's book is a very valuable and welcome contribution to the ongoing reassessment of the Scientific Revolution as a manifold process that involved all areas of natural knowledge-from physics to medicine-and reconfigured each and their mutual relations. -- Maria Pia Donato Isis Among the many lessons to be taken from Domenico Bertoloni Meli's carefully researched, persuasive and, at times, beautifully rendered book is that the life sciences in the early modern period must be studied with an eye to the history of science, medicine and philosophy... There is too much to praise and to learn from Meli's book to do it justice in a short review such as this. For several years now his work has represented a vital and inspiring force in the history medicine, and Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy in particular will enliven the study of early modern medicine in ways we cannot pretend to anticipate. But one thing we are confident about is that Meli's latest book should shape the new work to be done on eighteenth-century notions of mechanism, the emergence of pathology, and the history of visualization and its practices. -- Cynthia Klestinec and Gideon Manning Metascience

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Anatomy, Medicine, and the New Philosophy1. Anatomical Research in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century2. Malpighi's Role on the Anatomical Stage3. Medical Locations: The Sites of Malpighi's Work4. Mechanism and Mechanics5. Experiment and Collaboration6. Disease and Anatomy7. Structure and OrganizationPart I: The Rise of Mechanistic and Microscopic Anatomy: Malpighi's Formation and Association with Borelli1. The New Anatomy, the Lungs, and Respiration1.1. Changing Anatomical Horizons1.2. Malpighi's Bologna Apprenticeship: Anatomical Venues and Vivisection1.3. Malpighi's Pisa Apprenticeship: Microscopy and the New Philosophy1.4. Malpighi's Epistolae on the Lungs1.5. The Purpose of Respiration: Thruston, Lower, and Hooke2. Epidemic Fevers and the Challenge to Galenism2.1. Galenic Traditions and New Medical Thinking2.2. Borelli and the Sicilian Epidemics of 1647–482.3. Borelli, Malpighi, and the Pisa Epidemics of 16612.4. The 1665 Controversy between the Neoterics and the Galenists2.5. Malpighi's Risposta to Galenistarum triumphus3. The Anatomy of the Brain and of the Sensory Organs3.1. Atomism and the Anatomy of the Senses3.2. Brain Research in the 1660s: Willis, Steno, and Malpighi3.3. Malpighi's Anatomical Findings on Taste and Touch3.4. Fracassati's Far-Reaching Investigations3.5. Bellini and Rossetti: Atomistic Anatomy of Taste and TouchPart II: Secretion and the Mechanical Organization of the Body: Glands as the Centerpiece of Malpighi's Investigations4. The Glandular Structure of the Viscera4.1. The Revival of Glands4.2. Changing Perceptions on Glands: Glisson, Wharton, and Steno4.3. Malpighi's Treatise on the Liver4.4. The Brain and the Cerebral Cortex4.5. The Kidneys: Bellini and Malpighi4.6. The Spleen and Its Problems5. Fat, Blood, and the Body's Organization5.1. The Necessity of Matter and the Animal's Benefit5.2. Descartes on Fat, Blood, and Nutrition5.3. Malpighi on Fat and Its Philosophical Implications5.4. Blood Transfusions5.5. Malpighi on Heart Polyps and the Nature of Blood6. The Structure of Glands and the Problem of Secretion6.1. Different Perspectives on Glands6.2. Intestinal Glands and Their Implications6.3. The Mode of Operation of Glands6.4. Glands in the Theatre: Bellini, Sbaraglia, and Malpighi6.5. Nuck's New Taxonomy of GlandsPart III: Between Anatomy and Natural History: Malpighi andthe Royal Society7. The Challenge of Insects7.1. Changing Perceptions on Insects7.2. Redi: Experiments and Generation7.3. Malpighi: Historia and Anatomy7.4. Swammerdam: Metamorphosis and Classification7.5. Swammerdam and Malpighi: Microstructure and Iconography8. Generation and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg8.1. Generation and Its Problems8.2. Harvey: Epigenesis and the Role of the Faculties8.3. The Organs of Generation and the Problem of Fecundation8.4. Swammerdam and the Amsterdam Circle on Preformation8.5. Malpighi and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg9. The Anatomy of Plants9.1. Plants between Anatomy and Natural History9.2. Malpighi's Anatomy of Plants: Structure, Iconography, and Experiment9.3. Trionfetti, Malpighi, Cestoni, and the Vegetation of Plants9.4. Grew and Camerarius: Iconography, "OEconomy," and SexualReproductionPart IV: Anatomy, Pathology, and Therapy: Malpighi's Posthumous Writings10. The Fortunes of Malpighi's Mechanistic Anatomy10.1. Mechanistic Anatomy and Malpighi's Vita10.2. Writing about the Self10.3. Levels of Mechanical Explanation in Borelli and Malpighi10.4. Paolo Mini and the Soul-Body Problem10.5. Ruysch's Challenge and Boerhaave11. From the New Anatomy to Pathology and Therapy11.1. A Bologna Controversy and Its Wider Implications11.2. Sbaraglia's Challenge to Malpighi's Research11.3. Malpighi: The Medical Signifi cance of the New Anatomy11.4. Sbaraglia's Empiricism and Methodological Concerns11.5. Young Morgagni's Covert Intervention12. Medical Consultations12.1. Between Theory and Practice, Carnival and Lent12.2. Publishing Malpighi's Consultations12.3. Structure and Contents of Malpighi's Consultations12.4. Curing with the Pen: Francesco Redi12.5. A Broader Look at Medical Consultations: Vallisneri and MorgagniEpilogueList of AbbreviationsNotesReferencesIndex

Domenico Bertoloni Meli is a professor of history and philosophy of science at Indiana University and author of Thinking with Objects: The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century, also published by Johns Hopkins.

The strength of Meli's work lies in his attention to detail in highly complex Latin works, and in his sensitivity to unpublished work, correspondence, diaries, and above all, to the technologies of illustration. -- William Poole Times Higher Education Distinguished as this work was, in Mechanism, Experiment, Disease Domenico Bertoloni Meli maintains there is a great deal more to Marcello Malpighi. In this new book-part biography, part intellectual history of anatomy (the philosophy and mechanics of the body), and part history of medicine in the 17th century-Bertoloni Meli tells readers why. What he does wonderfully is to locate Malpighi as a practicing physician during Italy's scientific revolution. Bertoloni Meli conveys the excitement of the new science, voices the tumult that ensued as opposing schools of thought clashed, and reminds readers that priority disputes are nothing new. JAMA Bertoloni Meli makes great use of Malpighi's wonderful epistolary consultations to remind readers that boundaries between research and practice have been drawn too sharply by historians. His use of overlooked medical correspondence increases the presence of Malpighi, the medical practitioner, working from bench to bedside four centuries before translational research hit the headlines. -- Helen Bynum JAMA The most comprehensive account to date of the works of Marcello Malpighi. -- Stephanie Eichberg The British Journal for the History of Science Bertoloni Meli's book is a very valuable and welcome contribution to the ongoing reassessment of the Scientific Revolution as a manifold process that involved all areas of natural knowledge-from physics to medicine-and reconfigured each and their mutual relations. -- Maria Pia Donato Isis Among the many lessons to be taken from Domenico Bertoloni Meli's carefully researched, persuasive and, at times, beautifully rendered book is that the life sciences in the early modern period must be studied with an eye to the history of science, medicine and philosophy... There is too much to praise and to learn from Meli's book to do it justice in a short review such as this. For several years now his work has represented a vital and inspiring force in the history medicine, and Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy in particular will enliven the study of early modern medicine in ways we cannot pretend to anticipate. But one thing we are confident about is that Meli's latest book should shape the new work to be done on eighteenth-century notions of mechanism, the emergence of pathology, and the history of visualization and its practices. -- Cynthia Klestinec and Gideon Manning Metascience

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Anatomy, Medicine, and the New Philosophy1. Anatomical Research in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century2. Malpighi's Role on the Anatomical Stage3. Medical Locations: The Sites of Malpighi's Work4. Mechanism and Mechanics5. Experiment and Collaboration6. Disease and Anatomy7. Structure and OrganizationPart I: The Rise of Mechanistic and Microscopic Anatomy: Malpighi's Formation and Association with Borelli1. The New Anatomy, the Lungs, and Respiration1.1. Changing Anatomical Horizons1.2. Malpighi's Bologna Apprenticeship: Anatomical Venues and Vivisection1.3. Malpighi's Pisa Apprenticeship: Microscopy and the New Philosophy1.4. Malpighi's Epistolae on the Lungs1.5. The Purpose of Respiration: Thruston, Lower, and Hooke2. Epidemic Fevers and the Challenge to Galenism2.1. Galenic Traditions and New Medical Thinking2.2. Borelli and the Sicilian Epidemics of 1647–482.3. Borelli, Malpighi, and the Pisa Epidemics of 16612.4. The 1665 Controversy between the Neoterics and the Galenists2.5. Malpighi's Risposta to Galenistarum triumphus3. The Anatomy of the Brain and of the Sensory Organs3.1. Atomism and the Anatomy of the Senses3.2. Brain Research in the 1660s: Willis, Steno, and Malpighi3.3. Malpighi's Anatomical Findings on Taste and Touch3.4. Fracassati's Far-Reaching Investigations3.5. Bellini and Rossetti: Atomistic Anatomy of Taste and TouchPart II: Secretion and the Mechanical Organization of the Body: Glands as the Centerpiece of Malpighi's Investigations4. The Glandular Structure of the Viscera4.1. The Revival of Glands4.2. Changing Perceptions on Glands: Glisson, Wharton, and Steno4.3. Malpighi's Treatise on the Liver4.4. The Brain and the Cerebral Cortex4.5. The Kidneys: Bellini and Malpighi4.6. The Spleen and Its Problems5. Fat, Blood, and the Body's Organization5.1. The Necessity of Matter and the Animal's Benefit5.2. Descartes on Fat, Blood, and Nutrition5.3. Malpighi on Fat and Its Philosophical Implications5.4. Blood Transfusions5.5. Malpighi on Heart Polyps and the Nature of Blood6. The Structure of Glands and the Problem of Secretion6.1. Different Perspectives on Glands6.2. Intestinal Glands and Their Implications6.3. The Mode of Operation of Glands6.4. Glands in the Theatre: Bellini, Sbaraglia, and Malpighi6.5. Nuck's New Taxonomy of GlandsPart III: Between Anatomy and Natural History: Malpighi andthe Royal Society7. The Challenge of Insects7.1. Changing Perceptions on Insects7.2. Redi: Experiments and Generation7.3. Malpighi: Historia and Anatomy7.4. Swammerdam: Metamorphosis and Classification7.5. Swammerdam and Malpighi: Microstructure and Iconography8. Generation and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg8.1. Generation and Its Problems8.2. Harvey: Epigenesis and the Role of the Faculties8.3. The Organs of Generation and the Problem of Fecundation8.4. Swammerdam and the Amsterdam Circle on Preformation8.5. Malpighi and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg9. The Anatomy of Plants9.1. Plants between Anatomy and Natural History9.2. Malpighi's Anatomy of Plants: Structure, Iconography, and Experiment9.3. Trionfetti, Malpighi, Cestoni, and the Vegetation of Plants9.4. Grew and Camerarius: Iconography, "OEconomy," and SexualReproductionPart IV: Anatomy, Pathology, and Therapy: Malpighi's Posthumous Writings10. The Fortunes of Malpighi's Mechanistic Anatomy10.1. Mechanistic Anatomy and Malpighi's Vita10.2. Writing about the Self10.3. Levels of Mechanical Explanation in Borelli and Malpighi10.4. Paolo Mini and the Soul-Body Problem10.5. Ruysch's Challenge and Boerhaave11. From the New Anatomy to Pathology and Therapy11.1. A Bologna Controversy and Its Wider Implications11.2. Sbaraglia's Challenge to Malpighi's Research11.3. Malpighi: The Medical Signifi cance of the New Anatomy11.4. Sbaraglia's Empiricism and Methodological Concerns11.5. Young Morgagni's Covert Intervention12. Medical Consultations12.1. Between Theory and Practice, Carnival and Lent12.2. Publishing Malpighi's Consultations12.3. Structure and Contents of Malpighi's Consultations12.4. Curing with the Pen: Francesco Redi12.5. A Broader Look at Medical Consultations: Vallisneri and MorgagniEpilogueList of AbbreviationsNotesReferencesIndex