Teaching nephrology at Naples Studium, 1650-1750.

The teaching of nephrology and of practical medicine in general (that is, clinical medicine) in Naples University (Studium) in the 17th and 18th centuries can be reconstructed through a plurality of textual testimonies: prominent among them the manuscript of students' notes. Notes taken by students attending the lessons of the prominent physician and scientist Nicola Cirillo (1671-1735) are here compared with the published textbook by his teacher Luca Tozzi (1638-1727), as well as with data gathered from a collection of consultations by Cirillo, in order to reconstruct the actual contents of the teaching and clinical practice of nephrology in Naples in that period.