"Man Who Won the War": Myth and Reality of Aldo Castellani's Role in Preserving the Health of Troops During the Italo-Ethiopian War 1935-1936.

The invasion of the ancient Ethiopian empire perpetrated by the Italian fascist regime in 1935-1936 deserves all the blame due to a war of aggression, a belated colonial enterprise and a bullying act of a totalitarian regime. Yet there is one aspect of that war that aroused universal admiration among contemporaries and which still deserves to be analysed today: the healthcare of troops. The Italian army, which came close to half a million men, was the largest European army that had ever fought in tropical or sub-tropical territories. Many Cassandras expected a health catastrophe, even more than a military one. But Mussolini decided to entrust Sir Aldo Castellani, the famous tropicalist doctor who had been living between Italy and England for years, with the role of Inspector General of Military and Civilian Health Services for East Africa. At the end of the seven-month victorious military campaign, the very low number of casualties recorded due to illness or injury evoked amazement and admiration. This was not just propaganda, as proved by the uncountable invitations from military and health authorities all over the world (including some of the nations that had imposed economic sanctions against Italy a few months earlier) for Castellani to reveal his secret through lectures, articles and conferences. Even US President Franklyn D. Roosevelt, who as a polio sufferer was particularly sensitive to public health issues, asked for and obtained a long private interview with Castellani, the "man who won the war".

JOHN KEATS AS A MEDICAL STUDENT: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ITINERARY

John Keats (1795-1821), besides being the famous English poet, was a student of medicine at the United Hospitals in London. On the occasion of the bicentenary of his death, we would like to pay tribute to this versatile figure with a photographic itinerary of his medical life. This article, in connection with the project "Himetop - The History of Medicine Topographical Database", retraces objects and places where the poet lived, studied, worked, and prematurely died, showing the importance of material culture. The photographic journey starts in London with the birthplace of the poet and continues through the places of his infancy and youth, the school in Enfield, the lodgings at 8 St. Thomas Street, the United Hospitals, etc. After giving up medicine to devote to poetry, the itinerary proceeds in the Hampstead and, as the ultimate destination, in Rome, where John Keats spent his last months of life due to tuberculosis. To conclude the path at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, where he was buried, surrounded by grass and flowers. The material memories left by John Keats, as well as preserving his memory, take on a significant educational and inspirational role for everybody and, in particular, literary people and medical students.

Was Aldo Castellani the inventor of combined and polyvalent vaccines?

Italian born and long term resident in England, Sir Aldo Castellani (1874-1971), is usually credited with "several discoveries of great importance in tropical medicine", most notably for his role in determining the aetiology of sleeping sickness and yaws. This contribution tries to highlight his role in the history of vaccinology as a pioneer in the design and use of combined and polyvalent vaccines. In the light of existing data, while acting as Director of the Bacteriological Institute of Colombo (Ceylon) in the decade before the First World War, Castellani was the first to experiment with both different strains of "antigens belonging to the same group" like in his typhoid-paratyphoid vaccine (TAB), as well as the simultaneous use of more pathogens, or part of them, for protection against different diseases, like in his "tetravaccine" (TAB + cholera) and "pentavaccine" (TAB + cholera + Malta fever). At the beginning of the War, based on the results of thousands of vaccinations, he strongly maintained that those combined or mixed vaccines were harmless and effective. The Allied Armies became more and more interested in Castellani's methods. His TAB vaccine was extensively used among the soldiers and his contributions were largely acknowledged especially in the Anglo-Saxon world in the following years, when it was plainly stated that "to Castellani is due the credit of having first proposed, prepared, and used, combined vaccines". The path to widespread use of combination and polyvalent vaccines - which is usually dated back only to the late 1940s - was still long and winding. Castellani himself abandoned that field of research after the War and this is probably why that early history is nowadays often forgotten.

Mazzini at 150: the Italian death of a London exile.

The year 2022 will mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Mazzini, the spiritual father of the Italian Republic and one of the best political minds of the nineteenth century. In this review, we revisit the events surrounding Mazzini's death, based on a report published in 1872 by Dr. Giovanni Rossini, the Italian physician who cared for him during his last days in Pisa. The detailed clinical information provided by Dr. Rossini suggests quite strongly that Mazzini's most likely cause of death was gastroesophageal cancer complicated by aspiration pneumonia. Surprisingly, there are no published medline entries concerning the cause of death of this Italian patriot and revolutionary, who spent 41 years of his life in exile, was admired by Dickens, Meredith and Carlyle, and is considered not only one of the founding fathers of Italy but also one of the visionaries behind the idea of a United Europe.

Tapping on the chest of history. Lost and found memories of Leopold Auenbrugger, inventor of percussion, in Austria and beyond

Leopold Auenbrugger (1722-1809), the inventor of percussion, joins René Laennec as the father of modern physical examination. On the occasion of the bicentennial of the invention of the stethoscope (1816), I went in search of the material footprints left by Auenbrugger in his homeland, Austria. This attempt led me to construct a rather fragmented picture, with some disillusionment (e.g. about his tomb) and some pleasant surprise (e.g. a new interpretation of the extant iconography). Apparently, posterity has not been sufficiently mindful of or grateful towards this great innovator of medical science. All the more reason for knowing and protecting what is left of him: buildings, monuments, portraits… Anyway, Leopold Auenbrugger is honored and implicitly remembered today, as he was in the past, every time a doctor practices the percussion on the chest of a patient (i.e. billions of times each year).

The monuments men: in the history of anesthesia, too.

A 2014 American-German war movie directed by and starring George Clooney (Actor, Screenwriter, Film Director, and Producer; Los Angeles, California and Laglio, Italy) (1961-current) popularized the work of a special United States Army unit devoted to the rescue of art treasures stolen or hidden by the Nazis during World War II. A similar story occurred in Paris to a curious little monument closely linked to the history of Anesthesia. This happened about 70 years ago, in December 1944.

Physician and dictator: a pictorial essay on Luigi Carlo Farini (1812-1866) in his homeland.

Luigi Carlo Farini (1812-1866) was one of the leading figures in the Italian unification, the Risorgimento. As a physician he always took care of the health problems of its people with a broadminded attitude, promoting for example extensive campaigns of Jennerian vaccination or experimenting the effects of electricity on tetanus. As a political leader - he was proclaimed "Dictator" in 1859 - he made possible the annexation of the Adriatic regions of Emilia and Romagna to the Kingdom of Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy that later, in March 1861, was to become the new Kingdom of Italy. This article, in connection with the project "Himetop - The History of Medicine Topographical Database", offers a brief photographic survey of the location and condition of the monuments and memories of the physician-dictator in his homeland, two hundred years after his birth. Not only the tormented history of his monument in Ravenna, but also his birthplace, hospital, tomb, etc., testify that Farini's memory is well preserved among the people he served as a physician and as a statesman.

Rome's physician: Guido Baccelli and his legacy in the new Italian capital.

Many Italian physicians played a more or less relevant role in the military, social and political events which paved the way to and accompanied the birth of the unitary State, which 150th anniversary falls in 2011, but probably just one of them, Guido Baccelli (1832-1916), left so many traces in the very landscape of the present-day Italian capital. Even if the millions of tourists pouring into Rome every year are not aware of it, the vision and tenacity of this celebrated physician lay behind quite a lot of the most typical and popular places of the Eternal City. Baccelli, as a politician, took care of his home town with the same kindness and effectiveness he put, as a physician, in the care of the sick.