Gaspare Tagliacozzi

Gaspare Tagliacozzi (* 1546 in Bologna ; † November 7, 1599 ibid) was an Italian surgeon and anatomist .

Life

Tagliacozzi studied at the University of Bologna under Gerolamo Cardano , he received his doctorate in 1570 . In Bologna he became professor of surgery, anatomy and theoretical medicine.

Act

Towards the end of the 14th century, the Sicilian Branca family (Branca the Elder and his son Antonio Branca) developed an operative alternative to Indian nasal surgery , the stalked arm flap (spacer flap). In those times, nasal plastic surgery was mainly used for duel or war-related mutilations and for syphilitic disintegration of the nose. Six partial operations requiring a total of 3-4 months, the nose was formed as a pedunculated distant flap from the skin of the inside of the upper arm, as Heinrich von Pfalzpaint had already described more than 100 years before him . Mentioned for the first time in a letter (later printed) in 1586, Tagliacozzi was the first to publish the technique in print in 1597, which made it to the general public and became known as the Italian method . It is still carried out today in a modified form and used as an inguinal flap to cover soft tissue defects under the name of flap plastic . Tagliacozzi also described the restoration of mutilated ears and lips (lip plasty) and is therefore considered a pioneer of plastic surgery in Europe, even if he is not the inventor of the methods.

Works

• De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem Libri Duo (Venice 1597)

literature

• Ernst Julius Gurlt: History of surgery and its practice , Berlin 1898, Vol. 2, pp. 496-514
• Christoph Weißer: Tagliacozzi, Gaspare , in: Werner E. Gerabek (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte , Berlin; New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1378