Alessandro Riberi

Bust of Riberis in the courtyard of the Turin Military Hospital, Corso Quattro Novembre, 66

Alessandro Riberi (born April 24, 1794 in Stroppo , Frazione Bassura, † November 18, 1861 in Cuneo ) was an Italian surgeon and politician. He was Senator of the Kingdom of Sardinia from July 10, 1849 until his death. He was also sitting in the Camera dei deputati del Regno di Sardegna . He was a lecturer in medicine at the University of Turin , as well as a surgeon, and enforced the merger of the two areas on the French model. At the same time he published a magazine.

life and work

Alessandro Riberi was born in Bassura , a Frazione of Stroppo in the upper Mairatal , in 1794 as the second son. His parents were Francesco Antonio, surveyor and trader, and Elisabetta Giordana. His mother died when Alessandro was five years old. At the same time, his brothers Pietro Agostino, Martino and Pietro Secondo died. Alessandro came into the care of his father's mother, Anna Abello, the wife of the notary Petrino. Alessandro received his first religious and moral lessons from a priest and uncle of the same name. But soon he was to go to Saluzzo with his older brother Pietro to study theology.

However, from 1810 to 1815 he studied surgery at the University of Turin, in 1817, two years after completing his studies in Turin, he also completed his studies in medicine at the University of Genoa . As early as 1813 he had received a position at the Clinica Operativa dell'Ospedale di S. Giovanni on the intervention of the lecturer Giovanni Maria Scavini , where he became assistant under Lorenzo Geri in 1820. Two years later he became assistant surgeon and incisore anatomico in this house. In 1825 he became a deputy professor at the university, in the following year Professore di Chirurgia operativa e di Ostetricia , so he was not only responsible for surgery but also for obstetrics . He founded the Laboratorio di Anatomia e Chirurgia , which still exists today and bears his name.

In 1821 there was political unrest in Savoy , which also had an impact on the university. In the course of this, Riberi made it possible for some protagonists to flee to France through the valleys of the Stura , Maira and Varaita . Although this earned him distrust at the university, it by no means ended his career. On the contrary, King Carlo Felice appointed him surgeon Maggiore della 4ª Compagnia delle Guardie del Corpo del Re on March 11, 1825 . Legend has it that Interior Minister Gaspard-Jerôme Roget de Cholex intervened in his favor, whose son Riberi had treated after falling from his horse.

Facade of the hospital in Bassura (Ospedale Alessandro Riberi)

After Carlo Alberto became king in 1831 , he appointed Riberi Chirurgo della Casa Reale e della Sua Persona , his personal surgeon and surgeon of the royal family, and from June 20, 1842 he was responsible for the royal family. On July 16, 1843 he was appointed President of the Consiglio Superiore Militare di Sanità . He enforced that every military doctor must have studied both subjects, medicine and surgery, as was also common among the French until 1814/15. He also founded the Giornale di medicina militare , which still exists today.

In 1845 he became president of the Società medico-chirurgica di Torino , which he converted into the Torino Accademia di Medicina on February 24, 1846 . This was based on the model - albeit with an exclusively medical focus - of the Accademia delle Scienze , whose Socio resident he had been since January 23, 1842.

Monument in Bassura, erected half a century after Riberi's death

Riberi established the use of anesthesia in all hospitals and acupuncture for pain relief .

In 1848 he became a member of parliament in Dronero in the Maira Valley, and on July 10, 1849, he became a senator. In 1848 he was advisor to the king, then he became a special member, finally a full member from 1856 (until 1861) of the Consiglio Superiore della Pubblica Istruzione , of which he was finally vice-president. Riberi became a member of numerous other societies, such as the Consiglio superiore di sanità , the Consiglio direttivo delle cliniche universitarie in the Ospedale Maggiore di S. Giovanni Battista , the Amministrazione dell'Opera di maternità and the Ospizio generale di carità of Turin. He was also a corresponding member of the French Académie nationale de médecine , the Imperial Medical-Surgical Society of Petersburg, the Accademia Fisico-Medico-Statistica di Milano , the Académie de Marseille , the medical societies of Barcelona and Lisbon , and a consultant to the Magistrato del protomedicato . He also chaired the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Turin.

On February 21, he became a member of a commission dealing with public hygiene laws and the health professions. In Venice he sat in the Deputazione per l'inaugurazione del monumento Manin , a deputation that was supposed to have a monument erected, which to this day commemorates the revolutionary and patriot Daniele Manin . In June 1861 he failed to cure Camillo Benso di Cavour , just as he failed to cure the Queen's mother, Maria Teresa. Nevertheless, he never lost the trust of the royal family.

At his own expense he ran a museum of pathology in the Ospedale di San Giovanni, where he himself worked as a surgeon for 35 years. He wrote out scholarships at his own expense. In his will he left his nephew Antonio, a son of his brother Martino, a million lire and made a number of donations.

Riberi was buried on the Cimitero monumentale di Torino . His monument was erected in Bassura on October 1, 1911.

Works

• Sulla cancrena contagiosa o nosocomiale con alcuni cenni sopra una risipola contagiosa , Turin 1820.

literature

• Mario Umberto Dianzani: Alessandro Riberi: un mito nella medicina torinese dell'800 , Turin 2007.
• Silvano Montaldo: Un medico riformatore e innovatore: Alessandro Riberi , in: Pierluigi Bassignana (ed.): L'Ospedale militare. Una risorsa per Torino , Turin 2006, pp. 47-73.

Web links

• Pierangelo Gentile: RIBERI, Alessandro , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (2016)

Remarks

1. ↑ Bruno P. Pieroni: Sanita: nuovo potere , Fatti e personaggi degli ultimi 30 anni raccontati da un inviato nel mondo della salute, Springer-Verlag, Milan 2004, p. 77.
2. ↑ RIBERI Alessandro , Senatori del Regno di Sardegna, Senate of the Republic.