University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
The good economic conditions of the family allowed Cesare Magati to undertake his studies fairly early. From 1596 he studied medicine at the University of Bologna, where he was a pupil of the military surgeon Flantinio Rota and of Giulio Cesare Claudini, teacher of logic, philosophy, and practical medicine. Magati practiced the treatment of head wounds under Giovanni Battista Cortese, an expert in this field. Very young he obtained a doctorate in Medicine and Philosophy on March 28, 1597.
University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
The good economic conditions of the family allowed Cesare Magati to undertake his studies fairly early. From 1596 he studied medicine at the University of Bologna, where he was a pupil of the military surgeon Flantinio Rota and of Giulio Cesare Claudini, teacher of logic, philosophy, and practical medicine. Magati practiced the treatment of head wounds under Giovanni Battista Cortese, an expert in this field. Very young he obtained a doctorate in Medicine and Philosophy on March 28, 1597.
Caesaris Magati, Scandianensis, In Almo Ferrariensi Gymnasio, De Rara Medicatione Vulnerum, Seu, De Vulneribus Rarò Tractandis: Libri Duo In Quibus, Quam Alio Quovis Modo Sanantur Vulnera
Cesare Magati was an Italian physician, surgeon, and writer. He was one of the forerunners of modern surgery.
Background
Cesare Magati was born on July 14, 1579, in Scandiano, Emilia-Romagna, Italy (Duchy of Reggio at the time) to the family of middle-class landowners Giorgio Magati and Claudia Mattacoda. One of his brothers, Giovanni Battista, was a doctor; his sister Laura was the grandmother of Antonio Vallisnieri.
Education
The good economic conditions of the family allowed Cesare Magati to undertake his studies fairly early. From 1596 he studied medicine at the University of Bologna, where he was a pupil of the military surgeon Flantinio Rota and of Giulio Cesare Claudini, teacher of logic, philosophy, and practical medicine. Magati practiced the treatment of head wounds under Giovanni Battista Cortese, an expert in this field. Very young he obtained a doctorate in Medicine and Philosophy on March 28, 1597.
Before turning to practice he deemed it useful to spend some time in Rome at the Hospital of S. Maria della Consolazione, where he learned the methods of treating wounds used by surgeons there.
When he returned to Scandiano, Cesare Magati built up a successful practice and gained the patronage of the Marquis Enzio Bentivoglio, who recognized the earnestness and ability of the young surgeon and took him to Ferrara. He passed a practical exam in front of the College of Physicians and began to work as a surgeon in the Hospital of S. Anna. There the established physicians received him with hostility, but he overcame their jealousy and in 1613 became a lecturer in surgery. This post became the focal point for the diffusion of his method of treating wounds and at the same time gave Magati useful opportunities to experiment.
In 1616, at the age of thirty-seven, Magati published, in Venice, the book for which he is particularly remembered, the collection of lectures De rara medicatione vulnerum, sen de vulneribus raro tractandis, libri duo. A few years later he became seriously ill and decided to join the Capuchin order. The investiture took place on 11 April 1618; he took his final vows a year later at Ravenna as Friar Liberato of Scandiano. But there was little peace for Magati in the monastery, for he was assailed from all sides with requests for his help and his cures. His superiors granted him permission to practice, and he treated well-known patients throughout the territory of the house of Este.
Magati’s major work, De rara medicatione vulnerum, written in Latin, is the result of Magati’s reflections in the period between his stay in Rome and Scandiano and can be definitely considered as the first manifestation of Italian surgery about wound treatment. It was published in three editions. The book is divided into two parts, general and specialized.
Two other works are attributed to Magati: Tractatus quo raro vulnerum curatio defenditur contra Sennertum, which was printed at the end of De rara medicatione, in the second (1676) edition, of which his brother Giovanni Battista Magati appears as the author; and the De Re Medica, which appears to have been printed at the expense of the Este family.
Cesare Magati was born and raised in Roman Catholic religion which he supported till the end of his days. In 1618 he took his vows at Ravenna as Friar Liberato of Scandiano and joined the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.
Views
Notwithstanding the danger of moving away from the path traced by traditional medicine, Magati was a reformer, and he could take the road of free observation, experiment, and reasoning with unexpected results.
Cesare Magati is remembered as the author of De rara medicatione vulnerum which is a printed work that, besides dealing with an innovative and alternative method compared to the one of the Hippocratic-Galen derivation commonly in use in his days, also emphasizes the healing power of nature. Extremely noteworthy, but probably due to the fact that he was a doctor before becoming a monk, was his disregard of the concept rooted in Judeo-Christian religion where man must act as a sovereign and master of nature, according to the precept of the Bible «Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth; and have dominion over the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth». And here Magati was very far from the aspiration to control and change Nature.
Salvatore De Renzi described him like «a bold reformer, but Magati was also fundamentally convinced of the validity of the Galenic system, so his way to be different was intelligently gradual and he always tried to support any thesis with extensive citation of some passage from works of Hippocrates and Galen. However he clearly and repeatedly showed his being curious and open to new “evidence”: on one hand, he explained the disease by “standard procedures”, but on the other hand he legitimated the subjectivity of the patient.
De rara medicatione vulnerum, written in Latin, is the result of Magati’s reflections in the period between his stay in Rome and Scandiano and can be definitely considered as the first manifestation of Italian surgery about wound treatment. Although the system he proposed had distinguished and strong supporters, including the famous Lodovico Settala (1552-1633), Magati was the target of the envy of his surgeon colleagues since when he taught in Ferrara. Many doctors were very inclined to get into scientific-literary struggles, and the formation of scientific factions was a natural result. The polemical struggle between German physician and naturalist Daniel Sennert (1572-1637) and Magati and Settala was one such dispute: it was a violent attack, although always somehow mitigated Cesare Magati. When the work of Sennert was published, Magati had already retired in the Convent of the Capuchins in Bologna and considered it inappropriate to enter directly into polemics with his German colleague, but there was a firm answer all the same: De rara medicatione vulnerum was reprinted with an addition at the end of a Tractatus, quo rara vulnerum curatio defenditur contra Sennertum, written by his brother Giovanni Battista.
The controversies around his work arose from his considerable innovations in the treatment of wounds. The usual practice held that wounds should be medicated several times a day, and it was widely believed that the deeper ones would have been more easily healed by keeping them open for a long period of time. On the basis of the many positive results, Magati proved that less frequent and gentle dressing was much more effective. One such “case” was when he had to treat a girl who had a thigh wound. Although he treated it twice a day, for about six months, it did not get better. Magati began to dress it more seldom and things went better and better so that after treating it every four days the wound healed. He was very puzzled because the usual practice required the medication “several times” a day.
From a purely practical point of view, the experimented method which Magati introduced simply consisted in a delicate and not too recurring dressing, trying to cause the least possible pain; he was also against the application of «taste» and the use of stylets. He tried to avoid the use of any irritant substance and especially he did not leave the wound exposed to the air, covering it as quickly as possible with clean and light diapers to keep the heat. It is also worth remembering that he treated the wounds with medicines (usually wine or spirits), but he used them rarely. The conclusion he reached was that it is the force of nature that heals wounds and the doctor must only let nature to do its work because often, especially in tough subjects, it succeeds in obtaining healing even when the wrong method of the doctor endangers the patient’s life.
Despite being a graduate and so medicus physicus, Magati was careful not to ignore the direct intervention on the body and he always had a preference for surgery, even though it was considered inferior to medicine. In his treatise, he affirmed that it made no sense to separate the surgeon and the doctor. He believed that the chances of recovery would have been much higher if a single professional figure who had the knowledge of both the doctor and the surgeon was at the bedside of a patient. Such opinions called into question long accepted and established professional as well as social distinctions. His stubbornness in applying a new method of treatment of wounds in the hospital of S. Anna provoked the hostility of many colleagues, and Magati replied by pointing out that their attitude was dictated by personal interests.
According to the paper documents known today, it can be said that while in the surgical treatment of wounds he was an innovator, the medical therapy he recommended both in the surgical treatise and in medical consultations, did not differ from that of his time: all his recipe were taken from herbal medicine. The only exceptions to the rule were the prescription of a little bit of triaca, a little bit of mitridato, a little bit of hyacinth powder, pearl, and horn. He started from his practical results obtained in Rome, and he showed also another fact regarding wound healing.
When Magati graduated in 1597 in Bologna, the work of Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) was well known; he realized by observation and reasoning that infection was transmitted by seminaria contagionis. Magati had no doubt that the air is pernicious for all wounds, and in fact in his treatise, as mentioned before, he said that people should avoid air influence, especially bad air, on the wounds.
It is also worth briefly recalling that the problem of wound care was already debated by Teofrasto von Hohenheim, also known as Paracelsus (1493-1541), and by Ambroise Paré (1510-1590). Paracelsus wrote about the successful wound treatment, and he wrote that a single medication could heal a simple wound; that’s to say it could have long-lasting effectiveness. Magati was entering a particularly treacherous field, touching the prestige of some “luminaries”: the wounds treated with his method, as innovative as respectful of the forces of nature, healed too fast. The long protracted treatment with visible great effort lost importance and consequently brought less money to the doctors still pursuing traditional methods. In his treatise, Magati reported cases he actually experienced investigating various aspects present in the patients. So he described carefully every phenomenon from symptoms to prognosis and treatment. Magati did his research with determination and courage. What is more interesting is to ask why.
Membership
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
1618 - 1647
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
For years Magati suffered from gallstones, and in 1647 he went to Bologna for an operation. The surgeon very neatly extracted three stones the size of an egg, but failed in the more difficult attempt to extract a fourth one covered with sharp projections; the bladder wall tore and Magati died three days later in great pain.
Quotes from others about the person
"Scientific observations of sublime surgeons have often led to a belief in a new discovery; so rare dressing of Magati was affirmed by some as a surgical innovation. Here are the disputes to the leadership of the advantageous method. Nothing of this would happen if doctors had a little more historical culture of their specialties." - Professor Egisto Magni.
Connections
As a monk, Cesare Magati was never married and has no children.