Ettore Marchiafava
Italian scientist
Cite this page
“Ettore Marchiafava.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/ettore-marchiafava/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.
Ettore Marchiafava. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 29, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/ettore-marchiafava/
“Ettore Marchiafava.” thisDay. Accessed October 29, 2026. https://thisday.info/people/ettore-marchiafava/.
Who was Ettore Marchiafava?
Ettore Marchiafava (3 January 1847 – 22 October 1935) was an Italian physician, pathologist and neurologist. He spent most of his career as professor of medicine at the University of Rome (now Sapienza Università di Roma). He spent most of his career as professor of medicine at the University of Rome. His works on malaria laid down the foundation for modern malariology. In 1885 they gave the formal scientific name Plasmodium for these parasites. They also discovered meningococcus as the causative agent of cerebral and spinal meningitis. He was personal physician to three successive popes and also to House of Savoy. In 1913 he was elected to Senate of the Kingdom of Italy. He was elected member of the Accademia dei Lincei, becoming its vice-president in 1933.
Historical significance
He and Angelo Celli were the first to elucidate living malarial parasites in human blood, and able to distinguish the protozoan parasites responsible for tertian and benign malaria. Marchiafava was the first to describe syphilitic cerebral arteritis and degeneration of brain in an alcoholic patient, which is now eponymously named Marchiafava's disease. He gave a complete description of a genetic disease of blood now known Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria or sometimes Strübing-Marchiafava-Micheli syndrome, in honour of the pioneer scientists. He founded the first Italian anti-tuberculosis sanatorium at Rome.
Cite this page
“Ettore Marchiafava.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/ettore-marchiafava/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.
Ettore Marchiafava. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 29, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/ettore-marchiafava/
“Ettore Marchiafava.” thisDay. Accessed October 29, 2026. https://thisday.info/people/ettore-marchiafava/.