[Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli, hygienist]

To celebrate the centennary of the death of Prof. Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli, the founder and first director of the "Istituto di Igiene Sperimentale" in Rome (1885), the authors remember this eminent scientist who spent his life not only working in scientific experimental research but also was a member of the Parliament and promotor of important laws regarding social and health problems. It should be remembered that, prior to 1870, Hygiene was not a discipline in itself, but was part of Medicine and taught in theoretical courses such as Public Health Inspection and Legal Medicine. On the basis of the discoveries by Pettenkofer in Munich (1883) and Koch in Berlin (1885), the Prof. Tommasi-Crudeli created the foundations of Hygiene in Rome as an independent subject, strictly linked to experiments thus realizing a theoretic/practical discipline. From that time on words, Hygiene has evolved and grown, to become a specialised subject whose objectives are epidemiological studies, prevention of diseases and promotion of health, and whose important contributions to other branches such as Microbiology, Parasitology and Medical Statistics have helped them to become independent disciplines.