MORGAGNI, JOHN BAPTIST, one of the greatest physicians of the eighteenth century, was born at Forli, in Italy, on the 25th February 1682. After having made rapid progress in the learned languages and belles lettres, he studied medicine at Bologna, where he remained several years, and then proceeded to Venice and Padua, in which places he made numerous experiments both in physics and in comparative anatomy. At the age of twenty-four he published his Adversaria Anatomica prima, and, in 1712, was appointed professor of the theory of physics at Padua. He then occupied himself with the continuation of his Anatomical Memoirs, in which he describes the intimate structure of a number of organs which had been ill observed before his time; refutes the criticisms of Bianchi, who had disputed some of his views; and exposes the errors which had been committed by Manget in his Théâtre Anatomique. This work was applauded by the greatest anatomists of the time, amongst whom may be mentioned Ruysch, Boerhaave, Heister, Winslow, Hoffmann, Mead, Senac, and Meckel. Morgagni was now promoted to the first chair at Padua, and successively admitted a member of the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and the academies of Petersburg and Berlin, besides several learned Italian institutions. Morgagni continued to labour till the close of his long and honourable career, which terminated on the 6th of December 1771, at the age of nearly ninety. The knowledge of Morgagni was not confined to the medical art. His vast erudition embraced philology, criticism, history, and antiquities, as we gather from his works, of which the following is an enumeration, viz. 1. Adversaria Anatomica prima, Bologna, 1706, in 4to, altera et tertia, Paris, 1717, in 4to, quarta, quinta, et sexta, Padua, 1719, in 4to, Adversaria Omnia, Padua, 1719, in 4to; 2. Nova Institutionum Medicarum Idea, Padua, 1712, in 4to; 3. In Aurel. Cornelium Celsum et Quintum Serenum Samonicum Epistolarum quatuor, Hague, 1724, in 4to; 4. Epistolarum Anatomice duarum, novas Observaciones et Animadversiones continentibus, Leyden, 1728, in 4to; 5. Epistolarum Anatomice duodeviginti, Venice, 1749, in two vols. 4to; 6. De Sedibus et Causis Morborum per Anatomem indagatis, libri v. Venice, 1761, in
Morgagni two vols. fol.; 7. Miscellanea Opuscula, Venice, 1763, in fol. The works of Morgagni were collected and published in an uniform manner by his disciple Antony Larber, under the title of Opera Omnia, Bassano, 1765, in two large volumes folio; and his life was written, first by Fabroni in the Vita Italorum, and next separately by Mosca, Naples, 1768, in 8vo. (A.)