Adelchi Negri

Adelchi Negri

Adelchi Negri(16 July 1876– 19 February 1912) was an Italianpathologistandmicrobiologistborn inPerugia.

He studied medicine andsurgeryat theUniversity of Pavia,where he was a pupil ofCamillo Golgi(1843–1926). After graduation in 1900, he became an assistant to Golgi at his pathological institute. In 1909 Negri became a professor ofbacteriology,and the first official instructor of bacteriology inPavia.On 19 February 1912 he died oftuberculosisat age 35.

Negri performed extensive research in the fields ofhistology,hematology,cytology,protozoologyandhygiene.In 1903 he discovered the eponymousNegri bodies,defined ascytoplasmaticinclusion bodieslocated in thePurkinje cellsof thecerebellumin cases ofrabiesin animals and humans. He documented his findings in an article titledContributo allo studio dell'eziologia della rabbia,published in the journalBollettino della Società medico-chirurgica.At the time, Negri mistakenly described the pathological agent of rabies as aparasiticprotozoa.A few months later,Paul Remlinger(1871–1964) at the Constantinople Imperial Bacteriology Institute correctly demonstrated that theaetiologicalagent of rabies was not a protozoan, but a filterablevirus.

Negri went on, however, to demonstrate in 1906 that thesmallpox vaccine,then known as "vaccine virus", or "variola vaccinae", was also a filterable virus.During the latter part of his career, he became interested inmalariaand was at the forefront in efforts to eradicate it fromLombardy.In 1906 he married his colleague Lina Luzzani and six years later, at the age of thirty-five, died of tuberculosis.

Negri's tomb in the Monumental Cemetery in Pavia

Tomb

Negri was buried in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (Viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, on the left, near the tombs of other two important medical scientists, the anatomistBartolomeo Panizzaand his teacher, the Nobel Prize–winningCamillo Golgi.

References

• Who Named It?, Adelchi Negri
• Some places and memories related to Adelchi Negri