Ten fun facts about Marcello Malpighi

Fact 1
Marcello Malpighi was born on March 10, 1628 in Italy and died on November 29, 1694.

Fact 2
He gave his name to numerous physiological features such as the Malpighian tubule system.

Fact 3
In 1691 Pope Innocent XII asked Marcello Malpighi to come to Rome as a Papal physician.

Fact 4
He taught medicine in the Papal Medical School and authored a long dissertation about his studies that he gave to the Royal Society of London.

Fact 5
Marcello Malpighi died of apoplexy or a stroke in Rome at 66 years of age.

Fact 6
Malpighi is buried in Bologna at the church of the Santi Gregorio e Siro.

Fact 7
Studying on frogs and extrapolating to humans, Malpighi validated the construction of the lungs, formerly thought to be a homogeneous form of flesh, and he offered an elucidation for how air and blood mixed in the lungs.

Fact 8
After dissecting a black male, Malpighi made some revolutionary advancement into the finding of the origin of black skin. He discovered that the black pigment was related with a layer of mucus just under the skin.

Fact 9
The usage of the microscope allowed Malpighi to notice that insects (mainly, the silk worm) do not use lungs to breathe, but little holes in their skin termed tracheae.

Fact 10
Marcello Malpighi was the first to see capillaries in animals, and he revealed the link between arteries and veins.