History of Cardiology

A graduate of Bologna Medical Faculty in 1653, and later prof. of medicine (1662), Malpighi pionecrcd the experimental study of living organisms and founded the science of microscopy. He discovered the capillary circulation (166 1 ), red blood corpuscles (1666), deseribed the structure of the ski n (M. la yer), papillae of the tongue, bodies in the spleen and kidneys (M. bodies and corpuscles) and the pulmonary alveoli. Microscopic exaınination in frogs while the heart was beeting, revealed opposite direction of blood in adjacent vessels and he observed further that blood broke into the eınpty space and was collected again by a gaping vessel. Two stamps and a posta! cancellatian depicting his portrait are presented.