MARCHIAFAVA, ETTORE. - Scientist, anatomical pathologist, clinician, and humanist, b. in Rome on 3 Jan. 1847, d. 11/12 Sept. 1935. In 1871 he began his hospital career at the Pio Istituto di S. Spirito, where in 1872, through public competition, he won the gold medal; appointed the same year as assistant to the chair of pathological anatomy in Rome, he became full professor there in 1883, holding the position until 1922, and was a master to Italians and foreigners alike for the brilliance of his research and studies.
Among his numerous works and discoveries, those on the tuberculous artery and the syphilitic artery of the newborn; on productive epithelial glomerulo-nephritis; on the outcome in hardening of pneumonia; on the degeneration of the corpus callosum and commissural pathways of the brain in chronic alcoholism, etc., are to be remembered. His name remains particularly famous, however, for his studies on malaria and for the great treatise on the subject, compiled by him in collaboration with his pupil Bignami; the government of the U.S.A. wished to have it translated and printed at its own expense as a work of state.
MARCHIAFAVA, ETTORE - Portrait.
For his scientific merits he was numbered among the members of the most illustrious academies in the world; in 1933 the Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene of London solemnly awarded him the Patrick Manson medal. He was a senator of the Kingdom, president of the Superior Council of Public Health, and vice-president of the Accademia dei Lincei. He openly and faithfully professed his Catholic faith; he enjoyed the full favor and august friendship of the popes Pius X and Benedict XV, who wished him to be their personal medical consultant and to whom he was always bound by devoted and faithful affection. In every activity, not separate from his scientific and practical work as a physician, his ever-ready goodness always appeared, so that his long life was always illumined by the most beneficent charity.