Ruggero Oddi

Ruggero Oddi was born of a modest family in the small town of Perugia, the son of Filippo and Zelinda Pampaglini. He spent four years at the University of Perugia, one at Bologna, and one at Florence, where he graduated in medicine and surgery on July 2, 1889. He was still a young medical student when he identified the sphincter and in addition characterized its physiological properties.

Oddi remained an assistant at the Physiological Institute in Florence directed by Luigi Luciani (1840-1919). He made a study trip to the Experimental Pharmacological Institute at the University of Strasbourg – directed by Oswald Schmiedeberg (1838-1921) – during which he isolated chondroitin sulphate from the amyloid substance. Oddi re-introduced bedside teaching and one of his pupils, J. van Heurne, returned to Leyden and introduced it there.

At the early age of 29 years, In January 1894, Oddi was appointed head of the Physiology Institute at the University of Genoa. However, already on April 1, 1900 he was relieved of his position due to a dalliance with drugs and fiscal improprieties. According to one biographer he used Vitaline, a homeopathic preparation. However, since true homeopathic drugs cannot possibly have any effect whatsoever, this should not have been a problem. He then sought employment as a physician in the Belgian colonial medical service and spent a brief time in the Belgian Congo, during which time his mental condition became more unbalanced, partly as a result of his using narcotics.

Ruggero Oddi died in Tunisia in March 13, 1913, at the age of only 48.

• Di una special disposizione q sfintere allo sbocco del coledoco.
  Annali dell' Università Libera di Perugia, 1886-1887; 2, volume 1, Facoltà
  medico-chirurgica, 249-164 and pl. IX.
• Effeti dell'estirpazione della cistifellea.
  Bullettino delle scienze mediche, 1888, 6th series, nr. 21: 194-202.
• Sulla tonicità dello sfintere del coledoco.
  Archivio par le scienze mediche, 1888; 12: 333-339.
• Sul centro spinale dello sfintere del coledoco.
  Sperimentale, sec. biologica, Florence, 1894; 48: 180-191.
• Sulla esistenza di speciali gangli nervosi in prosssimità dello sfintere del coledoco.
  Monitore zoologico italiano, 1894; 5: 216-216, and pl. IV.
• Ueber das Vorkommen von Chondroitinschwefelsäure in der Amyloidleber.
  Archiv für experimentelle Patholgie und Pharmakologie, Leipzig, 1894; 33: 376-388.
• Sulla fisio-patologia delle vie biliari. Conferenze cliniche italiane dirette dal Prof. Achille de Giovanni . . . 1st ser. (I. Milano, n.d.), 77-124.
• L'inibizione dal punto di vista fisio-patologico, psicologico e sociale. Torino, 1898.
• Gli alimenti e la loro funzione nella economica dell'organismo individuale e sociale.
  Torino, 1902.
• Luigi Belloni:
  Sulla vita e sull'opera di Ruggero Oddi (1864-1913).
  Rendiconti dell'Istituto lombardo di scienze e lettere, Classse di scienze (B), 1965, 99: 35-50.
  Über Leben und Werk von Ruggero Oddi (1864-1913), dem Entdecker des Schliessmuskels des Hauptgallenganges. Medizinhistorische Journal, 1966, 1: 96-109.