HERCOLANI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. — Physician, tertiary, and anatomist, born in Bologna on 23 Dec. 1817, died there on 16 Nov. 1883. The political events of 1848 and 1849 led him to Turin; from there, after teaching at that School of Veterinary Medicine, he moved to Bologna as professor of pathological anatomy. He is chiefly remembered for his researches on the structure of the placenta and the origin of the decidua in women and in certain female animals.
He also addressed general problems of biology. *The Italian veterinary problem*. E.’s original idea was that the epithelium of the chorionic villus functions like that of the intestinal villus. As regards organic evolution, E. believed he could demonstrate evolution within a given animal type (by “type” he meant species). But he was not certain of evolution from one type to another (i.e., from one kind of organization to another).
He wrote: *Sulla filosofia biologica moderna*, in G. F. E. Sommasi, *Evoluzione, esistenza e naturalismo* (Naples 1877).