The dawn of algometry: Paolo Mantegazza's research on pain

By the 1860s, Paolo Mantegazza was a professor of general pathology at the University of Pavia, where he had graduated in medicine in 1854. There, he founded Italy's first laboratory of experimental pathology and did his first research on pain, the subject of various communications presented to the Istituto Lombardo in Milan. In 1880, Mantegazza published Physiology of Pain, one of the several "physiologies" (of pleasure, of love, of hatred, of woman) that he wrote during his career. In this book, a testament to his scientific versatility, experimental observations supplemented his insights into hygienism and anthropology. This research on pain also led to a dispute between Mantegazza and Cesare Lombroso, which was the start of the two scientists' estrangement.