1654-1720

Italian physician and epidemiologist who served as personal physician to Pope Clement XI. His research added to the knowledge of syphilis, malaria, plague, contagious fevers, asthma, aneurysm, and heart disease. In De noxiis paludum effluviis (On Harmful Emissions from Marshes) (1717), he proposed draining swamps in order to prevent malaria and suggested that mosquitoes might be the transmitters of that disease. His De subitaneis mortibus (On Sudden Kinds of Death) (1707) is a classic of cardiology.