title: [Felice Fontana precursor of neurosciences (author's transl)].
abstract: The A.A. insert the life and work of the naturalist and chemist Felice Fontana, born in Pomarolo (Trentino), in the frame of 18th century sciences, beside other great names of that century like Carolus Linnaeus, Réaumur, von Haller, Spallanzani, Morgagni, Priestley and Lavoisier. In the field of general biology, the discovery of nucleus and nucleolus and consequently the discovery of the eukaryotic cell, as we say in our days, in his, as well as the one of anabiosis. The A.A. enucleate and analyse the contributions of Fontana to the neurosciences; he has discovered the axon and the myelinic sheath half century before Remak and Purknije; he found out that the white matter of the brain is made of fibres alike those of nerves and the grey matter is made of globules (i.e. cells) mixed up with fibres; he discovered in the retina a part of coming out from the brain; he described the transversal bands of fibres of the skeletal muscles; he was the first to introduce into physiology the law of "all and nothing"; he attributed the irritability to the whole animal life; he identified the pupillar reflexes to the light, the reflex of accommodation, the consensual reflex, the psycho-emotive mydriasis and at last the myosis of sleep. He made experimental searches about nerves and recognised their regeneration, he enumerated various pathological intracranial masses, he made an important anatomopathological research about hydatid cyst in the brain of the sheep affected by "capostorno" and madness, he demonstrated their parasitical nature (he said that the hydated cysts were covered inside by small animals), he come out to formulate the hypothesis that some neuropsychiatric diseases of man can depend from similar aetiology. He declared that passions may have pathological effects (psyco-somatic aetiology), but he has also drawned the attention against the danager of aprioristical generalisation of neurogenical causes in all diseases. The A.A. give to Fontana the palm of precursor of modern neurosciences and of neurology intended as synthesis and unified corpus of these sciences.
mesh_terms: D003585:Cell Biology / Q000266:history; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D007558:Italy; D009462:Neurology / Q000266:history*
vernacular_title: Felice Fontana precursore delle moderne neuroscienze.