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CENTENARY REVIEW ARTICLE
One hundred years of Haematologica
Paolo Mazzarello
Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences and University Museum System, University of Pavia, Italy E-mail: PAOLO MAZZARELLO - paolo.mazzarello@unipv.it
doi:10.3324/haematol.2019.244350
The historical-scientific background
Hematology as a separate specialty, with its own methodology and hospital wards, only began to emerge between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Before then, the pathophysiology and the clinical practice of hematologic diseases were mainly considered to be simply a part of internal medicine. However, the use of the term ‘hematology’ was, in fact, much older. In 1743, Thomas Schwencke (1694-1767), professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of The Hague, and also a physi- cian to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart during his concert tour in the Netherlands in 1765, published a volume entitled Haematologia, sive sanguinis historia. A book written by Martin Schurig (1656-1733), a doctor from Dresden, was published in 1744 which bore the term ‘hematology’ in the title: Haematologia historico-medica, hoc est sanguinis consideratio physico-medico-curiosa etc.
The turning point that brought hematology into the mod- ern age was the introduction of cell theory in the mid-nine- teenth century, according to which all body organs and parts of living beings, including the blood, were composed of many elementary ‘bricks’, the cells, and by what they pro- duced through their different functions.1 Although this rep- resents the theoretical prerequisite for the development of this field of medicine, along with biology, its real founda- tions could only be laid, on the one hand, by the develop- ment of modern microscopy (and related cytological staining techniques) and, on the other, by the development of chem- ical methods to study the blood. The invention of the achro- matic microscope by Giovanni Battista Amici (1786-1863) in 1824 and the development of staining procedure in histology based on aniline dyes by Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) were par- ticularly important.
The second half of the nineteenth century was certainly a crucial period for the investigation of blood components. Although the erythrocytes had been observed by the Italian Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) in 1665, and clearly described by the Dutch Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) in 1674,2 they became a subject of functional study in relation to pathological conditions only in the second half of the nineteenth century. An important scientific step in the histo- ry of hematology was the discovery of the hematopoietic function of bone marrow by Ernst Neumann (1834-1918) and Giulio Bizzozero (1846-1901) in 1868.3 Another impor- tant development in this field of medicine was the descrip- tion by Paul Ehrlich (who used the aniline staining technique in his degree thesis) of various types of leukocytes on the basis of their affinity for specific dyes. Although there had been some earlier vague descriptions of platelets, they were clearly observed almost simultaneously by various authors from 1878 to 1882, in particular by Georges Hayem (1841-
1933), Ernst Neumann and Giulio Bizzozero. Only the latter, however, was able to consider them as distinct elements unrelated to erythrocytes and leukocytes, and to clarify their fundamental role in the formation of the white thrombus capable of blocking hemorrhage. Moreover, as early as 1869, Bizzozero in Pavia had described the megakaryocytes as “giant cells”.4 However, it was not until 1906 that James Homer Wright (1869-1928) hypothesized that platelets derive from bone marrow megakaryocytes.5
Thus, it was during the second half of the nineteenth cen- tury that the fundamental cognitive elements from which hematology could develop as an autonomous discipline were laid down. The subsequent explosion of clinical and pathophysiological studies of blood disorders led to the need for specific publishing tools aimed at disseminating the results of the research. And so the first specialized journals for hematologic studies in normal and pathological condi- tions were founded. One of these that quickly became a focus of attention was Folia haematologica founded by Artur Pappenheim (1870-1916), one of the leaders of the emerging field of blood studies in physiology and pathology. Working on the development of erythrocytes in Rudolf Virchow's (1821-1902) Pathological Institute in Berlin, he became the
Figure 1. Guido Bizzozero.
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