Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia

Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia (1510 to 1580) was an Italian physician, a student of Falloppio, Manardo and Vesalius, professor at the University of Naples, Protomedicus of Sicily and a major figure in the history of medicine and human anatomy. Born in Regalbuto in Sicily, he studied at Padua from 1532 to 1537 and left with a degree in medicine. In 1544 he became professor of anatomy and medicine at Naples, where he gave the first distinct account of the sphenoid and ethmoid bones and in 1546 first described the stapes, the third ear bone. His De tumoribus praeter naturam (1553) contains what is probably the first description of scarlet fever, a study of the penis and a description of 163 types of tumor. In 1556 he was recruited to Palermo as lecturer of medicine and anatomy. His commentary on Galen's De Ossibus was published posthumously in 1603.