Prospero Alpini / Physician (16. Jh.)

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Prospero Alpini, also pro by Alpinus or pro by Alpini/Alpino (* 23 November 1553 in Marostica (Republic of Venice); " 16 February 1617 in Padua) was an Italian physician and Botaniker.

Prospero Alpinos father, Francesco Alpino, was likewise an important physician, what suggests that the family was wealthy. Alpino was catholic educated.

Study

After it had served in the army, it began 1574 its medical study at the university in Padua (allegedly Alpini a military career aimed at, however to was then continued studying medicine like its father; this fits however badly its later passion for the Botanik.), where he was selected as an outstanding student well-known and often into committees. it received its doctor title in medicine and philosophy to 1578.

Its preferential scientific disciplines were Botanik, medicine and pharmacology, further busy he itself with natural history and Zoologie.

Egypt

Afterwards it practiced to a small city in the province Padua in Campo San Pietro, but its preference for the Botanik, particularly for exotic plants, led it 1580 to Egypt, where he became a body physician of venedischen Ambassador in Cairo, George Emo or Hemi (also Giorgio Emo).

He spent three years in Egypt, where he studied the Egyptian Flora intensively. From the observation of Dattelpalmen it drew the conclusion, which a planting two sexes have (basis for their later organization after He said that the female Dattelpalmen did not carry fruits, if their branches do not come into contact with the branches of the male Dattelpalmen; or more generally expressed, if the female plants were dusted or were not affected not by the Pollen of the male plants.

After its return to Italy, he lived in Genova and was a physician of Andrea Doria, the prince von Melfi, a municipality in the Italian province Potenza. In this time it led also its own practice. 1590 it returned to Venice, where it was selected 1593 or 1594 to lettore dei semplici at the university in Padua.

Professur in Padua

1593 it, one year after Galileo Galileis appointment the professor for mathematics, became the first professor for Botanik at the university in Padua. There it cultivated differently species of eastern plants, which it had more liber described in De Plantis 1603 replaced Prospero Alpini Melchiore Guilandino as a director of the botanischen garden in Padua. It held this office until 1616. Despite its training activity he was further also as a practicing physician years later died he in Padua.

Its son, Alpino Alpini (died 1637), was likewise a professor for Botanik in Padua.

Its Hauptwerke

Alpinis of works were very well-known during its lifetimes. Alpini maintained correspondence with other scientists within and outside of Italy. The kind Alpinia, from the order of the Zingiberaceae was dedicated to it by

The most well-known work Alpinis, De plantis Aegypti, (1592), is an innovative study of the Egyptian Flora, which inserted many exotic plants into the European botanischen circles. It contains 73 large woodcuts of exotic plants.
1591 it already published De balsamo dialogus over a special plant. As a physician it was particularly interested in the pharmakologischen characteristics of the plants.
De rerum aegyptarum, only for a long time after Alpinis death published, was an innovative contribution to the Main object was Egyptian natural history.
De medicina Aegyptiorum (1591) was one of the first studies over not European medicine. The first European work, in that the coffee bush, is not only mentioned but also illustrated the banana and the Baobab is.
De plantis exoticis libri duo (1629): Alpini studied together with Onorio Belli carefully the kretische Flora. Later further information about plants from other regions was merged into the manuscript, which by Alpinos son was edited and 1614 was completed. Data over many of these plants became by seed samples, which were dispatched Alpini, and which had cultivated these, won. All 145 plants were illustrated by woodcuts. Many of the plants were for the first time described. The exactness Alpinis when describing the plants was shown by A. Baldacci and PER ANNUM Saccardo, who could identify 71 that altogether 85 kretischen plants.
Alpinis studies of Egyptian diseases culminated in its work De celebrated far praesagienda vita et morte aegrotontium. Its exzellente Monographie over the Egyptian medicine (1591) is probably the earliest of their kind. It indicates that hashish lets humans in Ekstase fall. Prospero Alpini compares the early stages of a hashish intoxication with those of the alcohol, but it underlines that the visions, which experience hashish-smoking are limited importantly by their intelligence and psychological condition at the time of the consumption of the drug.

Promoter

Alpino was promoted v.a. during its co-operation mainly by George Emo and Andrea Doria. Antonio Morosini, a friend of the family, to who Alpini De dedicated medicina aegyptiorum, recommended it to Emo. In the time, in which he followed to his appointment in Padua, he dedicated its De balsamo dialogus to the Riformatori (actual trustees) of the university. It published it again 1592 with the same dedication. 1594 it was appointed; 1601, in the year of its reappointment, he dedicated praesagienda vita likewise the Riformatori to De.

Bibliography

De balsamo dialogus (1591)
De plantis Aegypti. Venice, F. de Franceschi di Siena, 1592.
De Medecina aegyptiorum libri IVTH Nicolas Redelichuysen, Paris, 1645. (This paper over the medicine of the Egyptians, first 1591 in Venice published, in Paris put together with a paper on Jacob Bontius over the medicine of the Indian.)
De plantis exoticis libri duo" Venise, Giovanni Guerigli, 1629. (It describes 145 plants in this book, from those a large part of kretischen origin is.)
De praesagienda vita & morte aegrotantium libri septem. In quibus acre tota Hippocrtica praedicendi in aegrotis varios morborum eventus, cum ex veterum medicorum dogmatis, tum ex longa accurataque observatione, new facts methodo elucescit. Cum praefatione Hermanni Boerhaave. Editio altera Leidensis, cujus Textum recensuit, passim emendavit, supplevit, citata Hippocratis loca accuravit, Hieron. Dav. Gaubius" Cum capitum & rerum duplici indice. Leyde, ex officina Isaaci Severini, 1733
gypti Naturalis. Pars great. Qua continentur Rerum [Pars secunda, sive, de Plantis Cum observationibus. Leyde: apud Gerardum Potuliet, 1735.