The study of obstetrics in the historical collections of the State Medical Library of Rome

Looking at the rich and varied library holdings of the State Medical Library of Rome, which has more than 145,000 publications including manuscripts, incunabula, cinquecentine and monographic and periodical works ranging from the 15th to the present day, a significant part is certainly that represented by the vast collection of books on obstetrics and gynecology. The State Medical Library, established in 1925 on the premises of the Royal Medical Academy as an adjunct to the research aims of the Umberto I Polyclinic in Rome, was described on the day of its inauguration by Vittorio Ascoli, head of the hospitals of Rome, as “an instrument of progress no less wonderful than the laboratory and the ward.”

In addition to the ancient collection that boasts first and in some cases unique editions, including the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, Vesalius, Valverde, Mattioli and many others, the Library preserves original medical studies of high scientific value that, together with the collection of Italian and foreign periodicals, represent a unicum in the national bibliographic heritage. The main nucleus of the Biblioteca Medica’s holdings includes, among others, the important Felice La Torre donation, an extensive collection specializing in Obstetrics and Gynecology consisting of 812 monographic volumes and 2923 pamphlets, including many rare and valuable editions from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

A physician and philanthropist, as well as one of the most distinguished gynecologists of his time, Felice La Torre was born in Savoca, near Messina, on May 3, 1846. He completed his studies in his hometown itself: after obtaining his classical license in 1864, he enrolled in the faculty of medicine and surgery at the University of Messina, which he attended for the first four years, a period during which he was able to steadily deepen his studies in anatomy and embryology, even practicing “in the field” in 1867, during a cholera epidemic, serving as a volunteer in the city’s military hospital. The experience enabled him to study venereal diseases in greater depth, and this period of volunteer service also earned him a commendation from the city authorities. Afterwards, La Torre continued his studies at the University of Naples, where he received his degree in 1870. Immediately after graduation he served in the army, attaining the rank of captain, although military life did not suit him because of his intolerant character and unwillingness to respect discipline. In 1882, therefore, he left the army, deciding to devote himself to the ’private practice of medicine: this was the period when he decided to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology.

La Torre therefore intended to enrich his education, and to achieve this end he traveled far and wide throughout Europe: he stayed for six years in Paris, where he studied and worked at the Service de la Charité, which at the time was directed by one of the leading obstetricians of the time, Pierre-Constant Budin, and at the university obstetric clinic of Charles Pajot, considered one of the founders of modern obstetrics. He then also studied in Vienna, Freiburg, Leipzig, and Berlin, having the opportunity in the meantime to publish specialized essays and articles and to intervene in the most up-to-date debates on the subject, and finally, in 1889, he returned to Italy: settled in Rome, where he founded the La Torre Specialist Institute, a clinical obstetrical facility located at the ancient Orti Sallustiani, and there he carried out the practical practice of his profession as well as an intense teaching activity. His institute had six free beds for poor women, counted on the presence of outpatient clinics that were also free, on state-of-the-art equipment for the time, and from the date on which La Torre obtained his free teaching of midwifery (on December 15, 1890), the institute also had classrooms that housed students in a theoretical-clinical course taught by La Torre himself and that, for the practical part, took place in the rooms of the Santo Spirito hospital. In 1898, La Torre also obtained a professorship in gynecology, and the following year he founded the scientific journal La Clinica ostetrica, which he directed for about 20 years.

He was also a member of several Italian and foreign scientific societies and academies, including the Accademia Medica and the Accademia Lancisiana in Rome, and was recognized as a luminary in his field, in which he was among the leading specialists of his time, thanks in part to thescrupulous attitude he had in his studies, which enabled him to sign numerous treatises and experiment with innovative techniques (including the one to stop obstetric hemorrhage and named after him, the “La Torre hemostasis,” first described in 1889) . Among his researches, those on the anatomy and structure of the uterus were recognized as being of considerable importance, and he also authored a manual, Elements of Obstetrics for the Use of Physicians and Students, which had considerable circulation at the time, as did his 1917 text The Uterus through the Centuries from Erophilus to the Present Day (1917), a kind of history of gynecology. La Torre also had a remarkable concern for social problems: not only did he work to ensure that his institute, as anticipated, provided free assistance to needy women, but he was also president of the Green Cross, served as a volunteer during the Marsica earthquake of 1915, and during World War I enlisted as a doctor to treat the wounded.

His entire library was donated by his heirs to the State Medical Library and has been fully digitized. The part consisting of the monographic volumes has been published and can be consulted from 2021 on the Cultural Internet portal. Several ancient books, as mentioned above. The oldest is a cinquecentine (dated 1520) of a treatise, Secreta sublimia ad varios curandos morbos, written in 1319 by Guglielmo da Varignana, an important compendium on the therapy of diseases of the organs of the human body. The cinquecentine then include an edition of Paul of Aegina’s Medicine printed in Basel in 1551, Juan de Valverde’s La anatomia del corpo umano (The Anatomy of the Human Body ), from 1586, which is also interesting in that it is accompanied by illustrative plates, on the organs of the human body (which is often described in section to show how the organs are arranged within theinside the body, and in addition the organs are also individually illustrated), and the work De conceptu et generatione hominis by Jakob Rueff and Wolfgang Haller, a treatise on childbirth dating from 1587, again full of illustrations.

On the other hand, it dates from 1601 La commare o raccoglitrice by Scipione Mercurio, a book printed in a first edition in 1595: the term “comare” was the term used to refer to a midwife, and the book by Mercurio, a distinguished Roman physician who lived at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, is recognized as the first Italian treatise on obstetrics and gynecology. It was a book that was widely circulated (partly because it was the only treatise on the subject written in the vernacular until 1721), printed in no fewer than twenty-three editions from 1595 until 1713 and also translated into German: it was divided into three volumes, the first devoted to “normal” childbirth, the second to “difficult” childbirth (and thus also to abortion and cesarean delivery), and the third to obstetric, gynecological and pediatric diseases. Mercury’s book was innovative not so much because of its content, as it conveyed traditional techniques and notions that were not particularly original, but because it was written in the vernacular, and this therefore demonstrates a desire to reach as wide an audience as possible by broadening the audience of medicine , which at the time was considered a subject reserved only for scholars (who therefore composed their treatises mainly in Latin). Mercury, indeed, wanted to write a book that would be easy to read even for midwives themselves. It would be necessary to wait until 1721, when Sebastiano Melli gave La comare levatrice to the presses, to have an up-to-date treatise, in Italian, on obstetrics and gynecology, and moreover La comare levatrice is present in the La Torre collection in a Venetian edition of 1738. Eighteenth-century editions then include Nouvelles decouvertes sur les parties de l’homme et de la femme qui servent a la generation by Frenchman Reinier de Graaf, L’anatomie de l ’ homme by Pierre Dionis, the Observations sur les accouchemens by William Smellie, the treatise Operationum chirurgicarum novum lumen by Hendik van Deventer, a treatise on obstetrical surgical operations richly illustrated by the engravings of Philibert Bouttats, and Philippe Verheyen’s Corporis humani anatomia , which has the distinction of bearing on its cover a large typographic mark with the signature of an artist, Giovanna Pesche. Finally, there are hundreds of books printed between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, when Felice La Torre was in business, and therefore did not lack the most up-to-date books for the practice of his craft.

The State Medical Library

The State Medical Library of Rome was founded in 1925 on the premises of the Medical Academy of Rome, with book funds from the latter, the Lancisian Library and various donations. Over the years, the institute has continued to specialize in the documentation of the latest medical research. In 1975, with the establishment of the Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage, the State Medical Library was recognized among the 46 relevant public institutions, becoming nationally the main reference point in medical, nursing, pharmaceutical and veterinary sciences. Since 2016, the State Medical Library has had a new location, inaugurated on June 21 of that year, on Viale Castro Pretorio 105, within the National Central Library complex: the collections are arranged in open shelving and placed in a classified order so as to facilitate their use.

To date, the State Medical Library possesses about 145,000 monographs and 1463 titles of periodicals (the bibliographic material covers about five thousand linear meters): among the books are also 4 incunabula, 128 cinquecentine, about 230 seicentine, 8 modern manuscripts, works and repertories on CD-ROM and online. The original nucleus of the bibliographic patrimony, consisting of the funds of the Lancisian Library, the Medical Academy and the Biblioteca Alessandrina, has been enriched over time with works of considerable scientific and historical interest, the result of bequests and donations by eminent clinicians and scholars, including Casimiro Manassei (the Manassei Fund consists of about 1,400 volumes mainly devoted to dermatology), Luigi Galassi (about 1,300 volumes) and Felice La Torre. The antique collection consists of incunabula, modern manuscripts, sixteenth and seventeenth century manuscripts, monographs from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, collections of English, French and German periodicals, some of which begin from the nineteenth century, and publications of high scientific value especially foreign ones that constitute a unicum in the national bibliographic heritage.

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