Biographieal Sketch of' Anthony Scarpa. 239 



on the congenital disease called the Clubfoot *. Before the works 

 of the Professor of Pavia on this disease, its treatment was em- 

 pirical ; now that we know the causes of it, and the nume- 

 rous dissections that Scarpa has made of club-feet, have ex- 

 plained the true nature of the disease, its treatment has assum- 

 ed a more rational, sure, and methodical character. The very 

 ingenious apparatus which Scarpa contrived to remedy this 

 disease, generally cures it in the space of two or three months. 

 Since that time, it has been simplified and rendered more 

 perfect, but tlie improvements are principally the result of his 

 labours. 



When the French invaded Italy in 1796, the Cisalpine re- 

 publican government bound all its employes by an oath of a 

 formula perfectly new, which contained an expression of hatred 

 to kings. Scarpa refused to take it, and declared he would ra- 

 ther give up his chair : the government, had the good sense to 

 keep him in his situation, and allow him to act according to his 

 own feelings. About the year 1804, Scarpa obtained leave to 

 retire ; but, in the ensuing year, Napoleon having arrived at 

 Milan for the purpose of being crowned, said to Scarpa, in the 

 presence of the whole of the Professors, " You have quitted 

 ypur chair — you should resume it : so valiant a soldier should 

 die on the field of battle." At this invitation Scarpa returned, 

 and again took tlie chair of Clinical Surgery. It was at this 

 time that Napoleon assigned him a pension of 5000 francs, out 

 of the bishoprick of Ferrara. 



One of the strongest claims to the gratitude of his contempo- 

 raries and posterity, was his great work on Aneurism, which 

 was published in 1804. The subject was suggested' by the 

 question which the Society of Medicine in Paris proposed in 

 1798, to throw light on the controversy as to the different modes 

 of operating in this disease of the arteries. It was not a mere 

 theory — the result of meditations in the silence of the study — 

 but the consequence of numerous and varied experiments made 



• Sid piedi torti congeniti esalea maniera di corregere guesta deformita. It is 

 with pleasure that I notice here the orthopaidean establishment of Orbe, in 

 which Mr Martin, successor of Venets and Jaquards, has obtained the great, 

 est success in the treatment of the congenital deformities. 



