Gaspare Aselli

Gaspare Aselli
Born	Cremona, Duchy of Milan
Died	Milan, Duchy of Milan
Movement	Scientific Revolution

Gaspare Aselli (or Asellio) (c. 1581 – 9 September 1625) was an Italian physician noted for the discovery of the lacteal vessels of the lymphatic system. Aselli discovered (or rediscovered) the chylous vessels, and studied systematically the significance of these vascular structures.

Biography

Gaspare Aselli was born in Cremona and became professor of anatomy and surgery at the university of Pavia. He later practised medicine in Milan, where he died. He is buried close to Porta Venezia.

Aselli is regarded as the discoverer of the lacteals, or the set of vessels which absorb or suck up the nutritious portion of the food of animals, i.e., the chyle from the upper part of the intestinal tube, in order to convey it to the heart and lungs, so that it may become incorporated in the circulating fluid or blood. On 23 July 1622, during a vivisection performed on a dog, he saw these vessels, and from the white color of the fluid they contained, from the milk-like character of which is derived the name of lacteal, distinguished them from the other vessels, and demonstrated them in his lectures.

He drew up, but never published, an account of his discovery. His description of the lacteals, De lactibus sive Lacteis venis, was published after his death, in 1627 at Milan, thanks to the liberality of Fabri de Peiresc. Aselli's work was later reprinted several times all over Europe: Basel (1628), Leiden (1640, and again 1641), Amsterdam (1645). It was included in the 1645 Opera omnia of the Padua anatomist Adriaan van den Spiegel.

A "liceo" bears his name in Cremona.

Works

Lacteals in dog's mesentery, from Aselli, De Lactibus..., 1627.

• De lactibus, sive lacteis venis. Leiden: Johannes Maire. 1640.

Further reading

• Premuda, Loris (1970). "Aselli, Gaspare". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 315–316. ISBN 0-684-10114-9.
• Stirling, William; Banting, Frederick Grant. Some apostles of physiology: being an account of their lives and labours, labours that have contributed to the advancement of the healing, p. 13

External links

• Works by Gaspare Aselli at Open Library