Antonio Vallisneri

Generali illustrates Vallisneri’s medical practice, which on the one hand was characterised by Hippocratic and Redian pharmacological scepticism and by the mechanistic Malpighian model, but on the other hand was also very attentive to the protection of his own professional image and willing to make use of many traditional and recent remedies from the most accredited pharmacopoeias. One of the most important consequences of the need to protect his image was Vallisneri’s refusal to practise smallpox inoculation, even though he believed it could reduce the number of sick and dead statistically, as it seemed to him too dangerous for the deaths it could cause among healthy young people.

[online 16/04/20]