thereof" (Preface).

(4) Venice, 1761.

(5) Boerhaave remarked that if a man wished to deserve or get a
medical degree from ONE medical author let it be this. (James
Atkinson: Medical Bibliography, 1834, 268.)

Born in 1682, Morgagni studied at Bologna under Valsalva and Albertini.
In 1711, he was elected professor of medicine at Padua. He published
numerous anatomical observations and several smaller works of less
importance. The great work which has made his name immortal in
the profession, appeared in his eightieth year, and represents the
accumulated experience of a long life. Though written in the form
of letters, the work is arranged systematically and has an index of
exceptional value. From no section does one get a better idea of the
character and scope of the work than from that relating to the heart
and arteries--affections of the pericardium, diseases of the valves,
ulceration, rupture, dilation and hypertrophy and affections of the
aorta are very fully described. The section on aneurysm of the
aorta remains one of the best ever written. It is not the anatomical
observations alone that make the work of unusual value, but the
combination of clinical with anatomical records. What could be more
correct than this account of angina pectoris--probably the first in the
literature? "A lady forty-two years of age, who for a long time, had
been a valetudinarian, and within the same period, on using pretty quick
exercise of body, she was subject to attacks of violent anguish in the
upper part of the chest on the left side, accompanied with a difficulty
of breathing, and numbness of the left arm; but these paroxysms soon
subsided when she ceased from exertion. In these circumstances, but with
cheerfulness of mind, she undertook a journey from Venice, purposing
to travel along the continent, when she was seized with a paroxysm, and
died on the spot. I examined the body on the following day.... The aorta
was considerably dilated at its curvature; and, in places, through
its whole tract, the inner surface was unequal and ossified. These
appearances were propagated into the arteria innominata. The aortic
valves were indurated...." He remarks, "The delay of blood in the aorta,
in the heart, in the pulmonary vessels, and in the vena cave, would
occasion the symptoms of which the woman complained during life; namely,
the violent uneasiness, the difficulty of breathing, and the numbness of
the arm."(6)