ERCOLANI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Physician, veterinarian, and anatomist, b. at Bologna on 23 Dec. 1817, d. there on 16 Nov. 1883. The political events of 1848 and 1849 brought him to Turin; from there, after teaching at that School of Veterinary Medicine, he went to Bologna as professor of pathological anatomy. He is remembered above all for his research on the structure of the placenta and the origin of the decidua in women and in the females of certain animals.
He also dealt with general problems of biology. The father of Italian veterinary medicine. E.'s original idea was that the epithelium of the chorionic villus functions like that of the intestinal villus. As for organic evolution, E. believed it demonstrable “in the evolution of a given animal type” (and by type he meant species). But he was not certain of evolution “from type to type” (that is, from one type of organization to another).
He wrote: Sulla filosofia biologica moderna, in G. P. E. e S. Tommasi, Evoluzione, esistenza e naturalismo (Napoli 1877).