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Centenary Review Article
Ferrata as director and of his assistant Di Guglielmo, the Clinic had immediately become the most important cen- ter of hematology in the whole of Italy. The liberal envi- ronment assured by Ferrata’s honest scientific attitude promoted the cultivation of very different ideas (although these were not always shared by the boss!). Thus, Di Guglielmo was able to argue that megakaryocytes derived from a process of cell fusion that eventually gave rise to their multi-nuclear appearance;59 an idea shared by others.60 There were also those who, playing devil’s advo- cate, proposed the hypothesis of the dual origin of megakaryocytes, both by fusion and by nuclear “bud- ding”.61,62
From its first volume, Haematologica continued to pub- lish many works dedicated to the clinical practice and clinical pathology of hematologic diseases. Of course, the founder of the journal, Ferrata, contributed works that resulted from his collaboration with members of the sci- entific school that was being formed around him (first in Naples, and then in Siena and Pavia), in particular with his most brilliant pupil at that time, Di Guglielmo. In addition to articles on pernicious anemia, studies appeared on the histogenesis of granulocytic leukemia.63,64 on cytological changes in the malarial spleen,65 and on his- tiocytic syndromes.66 Di Guglielmo wrote an important work on erythremia for Haematologica, a field of study he personally introduced.67 The paper described in depth two cases of acute erythremia (Di Guglielmo’s disease) that had already been presented to the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia in 1926, variously studied from different clinical, hematologic, and anatomical-pathological points of view. Many other areas of clinical hematology and related fields of study were also touched on, including: paroxysmal hemoglobinuria, the clinical and biological significance of Bence-Jones proteinuria, the pathogenesis of Gaucher disease, studies on leukemia, investigation of the forensic applications of hematology, and so on.
Haematologica has also always provided a means of making research performed outside Italy available to a wider readership, with works published in French, German and English. Thanks to the credibility and high professional profile of the director, Ferrata, the prestige of the journal immediately attracted the publication of studies produced by illustrious European names in the medical sciences. In 1924, Otto Lubarsch (1860-1933), director of the Institute of Pathology of the University of Berlin (known for defining carcinoid tumors) published a paper on the pathogenesis of thrombosis and embolism.68 Shortly afterwards, the well-known pathol- ogist Felix Marchand (1846-1928), who worked in Leipzig, published an article on the histology of the omentum.69 An important paper was published in 1922 by Hal Downey (1877-1959) of the Department of Animal Biology of the University of Minnesota, in the US, a researcher who would become known the follow- ing year for the description of reactive lymphocytes (also known as "Downey cells"). The paper dealt with the structure and origin of lymph sinuses of mammalian lymph nodes.70 In its first ten years, other studies were sent for publication in Haematologica from France,71 Hungary,72 Switzerland,73,74 Austria,75 Romania,76,77 Belgium,78 Russia,79 Czechoslovakia,80 and Brazil.81
Ups and downs
In ten years, Ferrata's management of Haematologica had allowed it to gain a position of great international prestige in the study of the physiology and pathology of the blood. Between the end of the 1920s and the begin- ning of the following decade, Ferrata’s pupils from Pavia began to publish regularly in the journal. Many were des- tined to have important careers in Italian Hematology and Medical Clinic departments. Aminta Fieschi (1904-1991) was an active contributor to both clinical research and in cytological studies. Besides working at the Medical Clinic of Pavia, he also worked at the hospital in Cremona and, from 1930, at the Pavia Institute of Anatomy and Comparative Physiology.82-87 Another important pupil of Ferrata was Paolo Introzzi (1898-1990), who worked for a time in Berlin with Zoltan Alexander Leitner and started to publish in Haematologica in the mid-'20s.** In one arti- cle, he proposed spleen puncture as a diagnostic proce- dure for pernicious anemia instead of bone marrow biop- sy, a method that he proposed also applied to malignant granuloma.88,89 The spleen remained his particular focus of interest and with Ferrata he proposed splenectomy to treat a case of primitive follicle-hyperplastic splenomegaly; the patient recovered.90 In Haematologica he published studies in collaboration with Caterina Dessylla91 of the Pediatric Clinic of Bologna and, above all, with Jörgen Nilsen Schaumann (1879-1953) of the Finsen-Institutet of Stockholm (who would give his name to Besnier-Boeck-Schaumann disease), with whom he studied the alterations of hematopoietic organs in acute lupus erythematosus.92
In 1931, Edoardo Storti (1909-2006) made his debut for Haematologica with a work on experimental anemia dur- ing an infection with Botriocephalus.93 At the time he was a student of the Ghislieri College at the University of Pavia and attended the Institute of Anatomy and Comparative Physiology to prepare his degree thesis. A few years later he would become one of the main collab- orators of Ferrata94-96 and his last scientific heir.97 At the same Institute of Anatomy and Comparative Physiology, his fellow student at the Ghislieri College, Vittorio Erspamer (1909-1999), also took his first steps in scientific research. In 1934, Haematologica published his study on schistosomiasis anemia in Libyan patients who he had examined during a scientific expedition.98 Three years later he discovered serotonin in the intestines of experi- mental animals.99,100
Important works were published in the journal by the principal Italian hematologists of the day. Among them was Ferdinando Micheli (1872-1937), director of the Medical Clinic of the University of Turin, whose contri- bution was a paper on hemolytic anemia with hemoglo- binuria and hemosiderinuria101 (at the time called Marchiafava disease, but later to be known as Marchiafava-Micheli disease) and Giovanni De Toni (1895-1973), from the Pediatric Clinic of Bologna (whose
**Leitner was a friend of Ferrata who invited him to Pavia to hold some academic les- sons. The Italian hematologist then asked him to host Introzzi in Berlin for a period of training. I got this information from Peter Schwartz, former Professor of Cardiology in Pavia and cousin of Zoltan Alexander Leitner.
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