The history of neuropathology in Italy

The history of Italian Neuropathology begins in the XIX century with Lombroso with his studies of criminal and prostitutes, inspired by the positivism of the era, and on the brain of epileptic patients. It reached its peak at the beginning of XX century with Camillo Golgi, Nobel laureate for his impregnation of neurons and the theory of the diffuse neuronal net. Neuropathology was then cultivated in Asylums and Universities where the main subject of interest were dementias and degenerative diseases, followed by vascular and inflammatory diseases. Some Laboratories arose in the country, especially in neurological institutes and some people later began to emigrate, especially to France and Germany and then to USA in order to improve their Neuropathology. Starting in the late fifties of the 20th century there was a progressive enrichment of Neuropathology with histochemistry, electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry and then molecular biology and the number of Laboratories increased consistently. As in other developed countries, Neuropathology with the enlargement of its scientific fields, began to split in sub-disciplines. It remained as a wide spectrum of knowledge, but neuro-pathologists were obliged to specialize in specific areas of the discipline. The continuous change of the set up of the university studies in the country in the last 20 years did not favor Neuropathology from which, moreover, some new independent disciplines originated.