BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY: CONTAINING AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE LIVES AND WRITINGS OF THE MOST EMINENT PERSONS IN EVERY NATION; PARTICULARLY THE BRITISH AND IRISH; FROM THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS TO THE PRESENT TIME. A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED BY ALEXANDER CHALMERS, F. S. A. VOL. XXVI. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. NICHOLS AND SON; F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON; T. PAYNE; A NEW AND GENERAL BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. RAMAZZINI (BERNARDIN), an Italian physician, was born of a citizen's family at Carpi near Modena, Nov. 5, 1633. When he had laid a foundation in grammar and classical literature in his own country, he went to Parma to study philosophy; and, afterwards applying himself to physic, took a doctor's degree there in 1659. Then he went to Rome, for the sake of penetrating still further into his art; and afterwards settled as a practitioner in the duchy of Castro. After some time, ill health obliged him to return to Carpi for his native air where he married, and followed the business of his profession; but 1671, at the advice of some friends, he removed to Modena. His brethren of the faculty there conceived at first but meanly of his learning and abilities; but, when he had undeceived them by his publications, their contempt is said to have been changed into jealousy. In 1682, he was made professor of physic in the university of Modena, which was just founded by duke Francis II.; and he filled this office for eighteen years, attending in the mean time to practice, and not neglecting polite literature, to which he was always partial, and wrote a very elegant Latin style. In 1700, he went to Padua upon invitation, to be a professor there: but the infirmities of age began now to come upon him. He lost his sight, and was forced to read and write with other people's eyes and hands. The senate, however, of Venice made him rector of the college in 1708, and also raised him from the second professorship in physic to the first. He would have refused these honourable posts; but, being overruled, performed all the functions of them very diligently to the time of his death. He died Nov. 5, his birthVOL. XXVI. B |