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Guido Banti

Born  1852
Died  1925

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Italian physician and pathologist, born June 8, 1852, Montebicchieri; died January 8, 1925, Florence.

Biography of Guido Banti

Guido Banti is considered the most eminent Italian pathologist of the early twentieth century. He was born in a typical village of Tuscany, in the lower valley of the Arno River. He was the son of Dr. Scipione Banti, a physician, and Virginia Bruni. He studied medicine at the University of Pisa, but was graduated in 1877 from the Medical School of Florence. He was then appointed assistant at the Archihospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and, at the same time, assistant at the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy.

Banti was a tireless worker, working under the guidance of Celso Pellizzari (1851-1925). He was chief of the hospital medical service from 1882, in 1890 he became temporary professor and, in 1895, ordinary professor of pathological anatomy at the Medical School of Florence. His medical service at the hospital ended in 1924, after forty-seven years; he died the following year, his thirty-fifth year of teaching.

As a result of then existing arrangements, Banti could observe patients in bed and later study their corpses through autopsy as well as through laboratory tests. He wrote that clinical observations, anatomical report, and laboratory examination are three links in the same chain. Banti's numerous writings are original, and few men of science have spoken or written with such conciseness and clarity.

Banti was a perspicacious clinician, as evidenced by his study on heart enlargement (1886) and his notes for the surgical treatment of hyperplastic gastritis (1898) and acute appendicitis (1905). He was also a precise histologist who studied cancer cells (1890-1893) and a capable bacteriologist who published the first Italian textbook of bacteriological technique, Manuale di Tecnica Batteriologica (Florence, 1885).

As a bacteriologist, Banti integrated bacteriology with the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. His works on typhoid fever (1887, 1891) and his paper Le setticemie tifiche (1894) contained the first observations on typhoid without intestinal localizations. Of fundamental importance were his studies (1886-1890) on Diplococcus pneumoniae Fraenkelii. In particular Banti analysed the characteristics of the types haemolytic and viridians. In 1890 he affirmed the haematogenic pathogenesis of acute pneumonia. In his remarkable experimental work on the destruction of bacteria in organisms (1888), Banti contributed to the development of Metchnikoff's views on the phagocytic defence of the organism against bacterial invasion.

As a histologist, Banti wrote his Endocarditi e nefriti (Florence, 1895), in which he illustrated several forms of endocarditis and described arteriosclerosis of the kidney. He also anticipated the modern view of nephrosis. Opposing Ludwig Pfeiffer (1842-1921), who in Die Protozoen als Krankheitserreger (1890) interpreted as parasites some cytoplasmatic corpuscles in the cancerous cells, Banti denied the parasitic nature of these corpuscles, and showed that it is only a question of a pathology of the mytosis.

As an anatomist, Banti contributed to the understanding of aphasia (1886; and in his paper of 1907, A proposito de recenti studi sulle afasie, he confuted Pierre Marie's (1853-1921) views on the motor type of aphasia. Banti is especially remembered, however, for his contributions to knowledge of pathology of the spleen and of leukaemia. In 1913, he gave his nosographic definition of the leukaemia's and demonstrated the relationship of the spleen to haemolysis in vivo.

From 1882 to 1914 Banti studied the so-called primitive splenomegalies - enlargements of the spleen that are neither degenerative nor infectious. In his first work on the spleen, Dell'anemia splenica , in the second volume of Archivo di anatomica patologica (1882), Banti had already directed attention to the relation between some splenomegalies and a peculiar form of hypochromic progressive anaemia in adults. From further observations he was able by 1894 to describe a new morbid entity, later known as Banti's disease, characterized by anaemia with splenomegaly, and, in the terminal stage, by cirrhosis of the liver with ascites.

Banti developed knowledge of the spleen in relation to haemolysis. He demonstrated (1895-1912) that the spleen is the principal site for the destruction of red blood cells, and that this normal function is exaggerated when the spleen becomes enlarged pathologically. Banti stated that only splenectomy can stop the haemolytic process, and the first splenectomy for haemolytic jaundice was performed in Florence, on his advice, on February 20, 1903.

But Banti's name is primarily connected with leukaemia: "All leukaemias belong to the sarcomatoses", he wrote in 1903, in opposition to the views of Arthur Pappenheim (1870-1916) and Carl von Sternberg (1872-1935). With further observations Banti completed his definition in 1913. He concluded that the leukaemias are systematic diseases arising from haemopoietic structures, lymph glands, and bone marrow, and that they are the consequence of limitless proliferative power of staminal blood cells. This is still the basic definition of leukaemia.

From 1907 to 1909 Banti was municipal adviser and also assessor of sanitation in Florence. A devout Roman Catholic, he also had a deep belief in science, which he often expounded in his lectures.

Bibliography

  • Dell' anemia splenica. Firenze, succ. Le Monnier, 1882.
  • Dell' anemia splenica.
    Arch Scuola Anat Pat., Firenze, 1883, 2: 53-122.
  • La splenomegalia con cirrosi del fegato.
    Sperimentale, Firenze, 1894, 48, Com. e riv: 447-452; Sez. biologica: 407-432.
    Translated in Medical Classics, 1937, 1: 901-927.
    An account of hepatic cirrhosis as the sequel of the earlier stage of splenic anaemia. This sequel has been named Banti's syndrome.
  • Manuale di tecnica batteriologica. Florence, 1885.
  • Afasia e sue forme. Florence, 1886.
  • Sulle localizzazioni atipiche della infezione tifosa.
    La Riforma medica, 1887, 3: 1448-1449, 1454-1455.
  • Sulla distruzione dei batteri nell'organismo.
    Archivio per le scienze mediche, Torino, 1888, 12: 191-221.
  • Sopra alcune localizzazione extrapolmonari del Diplococcus pneumoniae Frankelii.
    Archivio di anatomia normale e patologica, 1890, 5: 71-130.
  • Carcinoma primitivo della tiroide.
    Archivio di anatomia normale e patologica, 1890, 5: 131-142.
  • Sulla etiologia delle pneumoniae acute.
    Lo Sperimentale, Firenze, 1890, 44: 349-384, 461-474, 573-588.
  • L'epidemia di tifo in Firenze nei suoi rapporti con aqua potabile.
    Lo Sperimentale, Firenze, 1891, 45: 85-94.
  • Su i parassiti del carcinoma.
    La riforma medica, 1893, 9: 361-364.
  • Le setticemie tifiche. La riforma medica, 1894, 10: 674-680.
  • La splenomegalia con cirrosi epatica.
    Lo sperimentale, 1894, 48: 407-420.
  • Ueber urämische Pericarditis.
    Centralblatt für allgemeine Pathologie und pathologische Anatomie, 1894, 5: 461-468.
  • La splenomegalie con cirrosi de fegato.
    Sperimentale, Com e riv, 1894, 48: 447-452; Sez biol 407-432.
  • Endocarditi e nefriti. Firenze, 1895.
  • La milza nelle itterizie pleiocromiche.
    Lo sperimentale, 1895, 49, Sezione Clinica: 41-42, 62-64.
    See also:
    Gazzetta degli ospedali e delle cliniche, 1895, 16: 190-195.
    Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, 1895, 31: 493-495.
  • Splenomegalie mit Lebercirrhose.
    Beiträge zur pathologischen Anatomie und zur allgemeinen Pathologie, Jena, 1898, 24: 24-33.
  • Pilorostenosi e intervento chirurgico nella malattia del Reichmann.
    Lo sperimentale, 1898, 52: 138-152.
  • Splenomegalei primitive.
    La riforma medica, 1901, 17: 590-592, 605-608, 614-617, 627-631.
  • L’evoluzione nella materia e nalla vita. Florence, 1902.
  • Patologia del pulmone. Florence, 1902.
  • Le leucemie.
    Atti della Società italiana di patologia, Firenze, 1903.
    Lo sperimentale, 1903, 57: 786-789.
  • Sull'ufficio degli organi linfopoietici ed emopoietici nella genesi dei globuli bianchi del sangue.
    Archivio di fisiologia, 1904, 1: 241-247.
  • Sulla cura delle eppendiciti acute.
    Lo sperimentale, 1905, 59: 891-896.
  • Trattato di anatomica patologica. 2 volumes, Milan, 1907.
  • A proposito dei recenti studi sulle afasie.
    Clinica moderna, 1907, 13: 49-65.
  • Über Morbus Banti. Folio haematologica, 1910, 10: 33-53.
  • La splenomegalia emolitica.
    Lo sperimentale, 1912, 66: 91-122.
    Lo sperimentale, 1913, 67: 323-378.
  • The Clinical Aspects of Haemolysis.
    Report to the Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine, Oxford, 1913.
  • Le leucemie.
    Report to the eight meeting of the Italian Society of Pathology.
    Lo sperimentale, 1913, 67, supplement: 10.19.
  • Malattie diplococciche.
    In: Alessandro Lustig, Malattie infettive dell uomo e degli animal, I. Milanno, 1913: 576-610.
  • La splenectomia nelle anemie.
    In: Richerche di biologia dedicate al Professore Alessandro Lustig nel 25º anno del suo insegnamento universitario. Firenze, 1915: 677-680.
  • L'evoluzione nella materia e nella vita.
    Annuario 1902-1903 del Regio Istituto di studi pratici e di profezionamento in Firenze,
  • Fernando Micheli (1872-1937):
    Sul Morbo di Banti.
    Archivio per le scienze mediche, Torino, 1909, 33: 351-377, 460-494, 495-514.
  • Alessandro Lustig (1857-):
    In memoria di Guido Banti.
    Lo sperimentale, 1925, 79: I-XXI. With Banti's portrait.
  • G. Patrassi:
    La questione del Morbo di Banti. Bologna, 1942. Pietro Franceschini:
  • La malattia di Banti.
    Il Sistema Istiocitario, Firenze, 1954, pp. 532-561.
  • In ricordo di Guido Banti.
    Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali, 1952, 43: 157-167.
    With complete inventory of Banti's work.

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