Giacomo Andrea Giacomini, the Medical Systems and the Origins of Experimental Pharmacology

Abstract

Giacomo Andrea Giacomini was a Professor of Physiology, Pathology and General Therapeutics in the University of Padua (1824-1849); follower of systematic medicine, he followed vitalistic theories. For him diagnosis identification of disease and therapy are closely related and disease are due to an excess or a loss of stimulations. About quinine, generally administered in fevers at high doses as a tonic-stimulant drug, Giacomini believed that it has a depressant activity, an action verified by him on rabbits, an early experimental pharmacology in Italy (1840). Thus, Giacomini performed empirical studies, and the real differences between systematic and scientific medicine are in the different approach to the relationship between empirical observations and theoretical hypotheses.