[The method of "rational medicine" of Giovanni Battista Morgagni]

Giovanni Battista Morgagni is considered the father of pathological anatomy. His contribution can be contextualized within the sphere of the extraordinary development of anatomy between the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the period in which this discipline became the "queen" of the natural sciences. A new pathology based upon anatomy became possible thanks to the mechanistic perspective that had characterized this science in the seventeenth century, in particular with the work of Marcello Malpighi, whom Morgagni regarded as his master. The approach of Malpighi and of the other "iatromechanists" was the subject of an ample debate in which the advocates of mechanicism and empiricism were opposed to, and intertwined with, the supporters of the "ancient," that is to say, Galenic medicine, with respect to those of the "modern," i.e., "neoteric" one. The anatomic-clinical method of Morgagni can be fully understood only when contextualized within this debate.