A physician and a man of science: patients, physicians, and diseases in Marcello Malpighi's medical practice.

Marcello Malpighi (1628-94), the celebrated Italian anatomist, was also a very successful physician and, as his correspondence indicates, medical consultant by post. This article focuses on the professional and social network that developed around Malpighi's medical activity. The network played a major role in promoting Malpighi's professional career and in disseminating his scientific ideas. Malpighi's medical practice was indeed fully integrated within his views of the structure and functioning of the human body in health and disease. A fresh look into Malpighi's medical practice allows us to get new insights into early modern relations among medicine, the new science, and the identity of physicians.