The history of neuropathology in Italy

The history of Italian Neuro- pathology 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 cen- tury 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, fol- lowed by vascular and inflammatory dis- eases. Some Laboratories arose in the coun- try, especially in neurological institutes and some people later began to emigrate, espe- cially to France and Germany and then to USA in order to improve their Neuro- pathology. Starting in the late fifties of the XX century there was a progressive enrichment of Neuropathology with histochemistry, elec- tron 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 neuropathologists were obliged to specialize in specific areas of the discipline. The contin- uous change of the set up of the university studies in the country in the last twenty years did not favor Neuropathology from which, moreover, some new independent disciplines originated.