Giovanni Maria Lancisi

Giovanni Maria Lancisi was an Italian physician, epidemiologist and anatomist, born in Rome in 1654, who linked mosquito-infested swamps to the prevalence of malaria. He qualified in medicine by the age of eighteen, worked at the hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia and held the chair of anatomy at Sapienza University for thirteen years. He served as physician to three popes and in 1714 edited the long-lost anatomical plates of Bartolomeo Eustachius as the Tabulae anatomicae. In 1717 he published De Noxiis Paludum Effluviis, which recommended draining marshes to prevent malaria, and he wrote widely on heart disease, which led to the eponymous Lancisi's sign. He also urged culling and quarantine to control rinderpest in cattle. He died in 1720.