MOSSO, ANGELO

(b. Turin, Italy, 30 May 1846; d. Turin, 24 November 1910)

physiology, archaeology.

Mosso was taken at a very early age to Chieri, where his father had a carpenter’s shop and where he completed his elementary and part of his seeondary schooling. He then went to Cuneo and Asti to attend the liceo, aided by a small scholarship given by the town of Chieri. In 1865 he enrolled in the medical school of the University of Turin. Two of Mosso’s professors, the zoologist Filippo de Filippi and the botanist Moris, procured him a post as teacher of natural sciences in the liceo of Turin, so that he could support himself. His financial situation improved somewhat during his last two years at the university, when he became an intern at the Mauriziano Hospital in Turin and was given free board and lodging.

Mosso graduated summa cum laude on 25 July 1870. The board of examiners was so impressed by his experimental thesis on the growth of bones that it decided to have it printed. His work at the hospital decided his future, for it was there that he met Luigi Pagliari, who introduced him to Jacob Moleschott, then teaching physiology at Turin. At the end of his military service (which had prevented him from accepting an assistantship offered by Moleschott), Mosso obtained a scholarship, on Moleschott’s recommendation, to the University of Florence, where for two years he worked in the laboratory of Moritz Schiff and wrote his first scientific papers. Next he went to Leipzig, where he studied under Ludwig (1873–1874), and learned to use machines for the graphic registration of physiological phenomena, an approach he later used extensively in his work. It was also at this time that Mosso first proposed his plethysmography.

Refusing a number of assistantships offered him by German universities, Mosso returned to Italy after visiting Paris, where he met Bernard, Brown-Séequard, and Marey. (Marey stirred his interest in graphic registration machines yet again.) At Turin, Mosso entered Moleschott’s institute and began fundamental studies on blood circulation; in 1875 he became professor of pharmacology (materia medica, as it was then called), and in 1879 he succeeded Moleschott, who had moved to Rome, as professor of physiology.

Under Mosso’s leadership the physiology institute of the University of Turin became an extremely active center of research, especially in experimental physiol ogy and biology, and attracted many foreign researchers. During this period Mosso founded Archivio italiano di biologia (1882), and established the Institute of Physiology in the Parco del Valentino (1893) and a station in the Alps (1895) for the study of human physiology at high altitudes.

In recognition of his scientific achievements Mosso was named a senator in 1904 but almost immediately contracted locomotor ataxia, which forced him to give up his physiological studies. Because of his illness, however, he dedicated himself to archaeology and conducted studies in the Roman Forum, in Crete, and in southern Italy. His last publications were all in this field, in which he acquired as great fame as he had in physiology. He died in 1910, following a more serious attack of his illness.

The importance of Mosso’s physiological research lies in his emphasis on experimenting directly on man whenever possible, as well as on animals, so that his research was truly in human physiology. His scientific experiments were carried out with special equipment, which he devised to suit the requirements of the studies. He pursued two main lines of research, the analysis of motor functions and the relationship between physiological and psychic phenomena. On the first topic, Mosso carried out highly accurate studies on movements of both smooth and striated muscles, in relation to a great variety of physiological and pathological conditions, such as heat, cold, sleeping, waking, and hibernation. He also considered movement from a mechanical point of view and from that of heat production. On the second topic he studied the variations in the frequency and energy of cardiac systoles, the increase of blood flow into the brain, and the increase of blood pressure in situations that today would be described as those of intellectual or emotional stress.

Outstanding among the many machines that Mosso perfected for his physiological research is the plethysmograph, with which he measured slow changes in the volume of the blood vessels; as a result he was able to determine which part of the movement of the pulse was due to cardiac pulsation and which to contraction of the vessels’ walls. With the ergograph and the ponograph, he completed very accurate studies on fatigue.

Mosso also studied respiration during sleep, pointing out the inversion of thoracic respiration; and human physiology at high altitude, demonstrating the phenomenon of acapnia, the difficulty of breathing due to absence or scarcity of carbon dioxide in the organism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Mosso wrote about 200 articles and books. His most important works are Saggio di alcune ricerche fatte intorno all’ accrescimento delle ossa (Naples, 1870), his thesis for the M.D.; “Sopra alcuni sperimenti di trasfusione del sangue,” in Sperimentale, 30 (1872), 369–375; “Sull’irritazione chimica dei nervi cardiaci,” ibid., 358–368; “Sopra un nuovo metodo per scrivere i movimenti dei vasi sanguigni dell’uomo,” in Atti dell’ Accademia delle scienze (Turin), 11 (1875), 21–81; “Introduzione ad una serie di esperienze sui movimenti del cervello nell’uomo,” in Archivio per le scienze mediche, 1 (1876), 216–244; “Sul polso negativo e sui rapporti della respirazione addominale e toracica nell’uomo,” ibid., 2 (1878), 401–464; “Sulla circolazione del sangue nel cervello dell’uomo,” in Atti dell’ Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Memorie, 3rd ser., 5 (1879–1880), 237–358; “Ricerche sulla fisiologia della fatica,” in Rendiconti dell’ Accademia de medicina Torino, 31 (1883), 667; La paura (Milan, 1884); La respirazione dell’uomo sulle alte montagne (Turin, 1884), a volume in honor of C. Sperino; “Le leggi della fatica studiate nei muscoli dell’uomo,” in Atti dell’ Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Memorie, 4th ser., 5 (1888), 410–426; La fatica (Milan, 1891); La temperatura del cervello (Milan, 1894); “Descrizione di un miometro per studiare la tonicità dei muscoli nell’uomo,” in Memorie della Accademia delle scienze di Torino, 46 (1896), 93–120; and Fisiologia dell’uomo sulle Alpi (Milan, 1897).

Major twentieth-century publications are “La fisiologia dell’apnea studiata nell’uomo,” in Memorie della Accademia della scienze di Torino, 53 (1902), 367–386; “Crani preistorici trovati nel foro romano,” in Notizie degli scavi (Rome, 1906), fasc. 1, 46–54; Escursioni nel Mediterraneo e gli scavi di Creta (Milan, 1908); and Le origini della civiltà mediterranea (Milan, 1910).

II. Secondary Literature. See Angelo Mosso, la sua vita e le sue opere (Milan, 1912), with a detailed bibliography of his writings; A. Botto Micca, “A. Mosso archeologo,” in Atti del XV Congresso italiano di storia della medicina (Turin, 1957), 20; L. Ferretti, A. Mosso, apostolo dello sport (Milan, 1951); and A. Gallassi, “Angelo Mosso e la medicina sportiva,” in Atti del XV Congresso italiano di storia della medicina (Turin, 1957), 22–25.

Carlo Castellani