Human Physiology Collection

The history of the Institute of Human Physiology at the University of Palermo begins on July 13, 1905, when Victor Emmanuel III promulgated Law No. 384, published in the Official Gazette of the Kingdom No. 172 of July 1905. This law granted a grant of 2,675,342.89 lire to the three Sicilian universities of Palermo, Catania, and Messina for the renovation and expansion of several university buildings, including the Institute of Human Physiology of Palermo. The total amount allocated to the University of Palermo was 1,214,685.14 lire.

Before the Institute's founding, Physiology teaching took place in some rooms of the Theatine Convent, which was the headquarters of the entire University and which today houses the Department of Law on Via Maqueda. There were no laboratories for scientific research, nor even laboratories for demonstrations to students.

The idea of ​​a building that could accommodate teaching and physiological research laboratories dates back to 1827, when Michele Foderà, a promising young scholar, returned from Paris and was appointed Professor of Physiology for his outstanding scientific merits. Supported by Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies, in a "petition" addressed to the king, he emphasized the need to provide the Palermo Physiology Department with a suitable home, similar to that found in other parts of Europe and Northern Italy. Modern laboratories, in fact, were at the time discovering the most important phenomena in the functions of the major human systems.

Due to a series of administrative delays, the funds could not be used for a full 45 years. This brings us to July 13, 1905, the date of the issuance of the aforementioned royal decree. Construction did not begin immediately after the donation of the plot of land by the municipality of Palermo, and, more importantly, proceeded slowly. After the work was inspected by the Civil Engineering Department, the Institute was finally inaugurated in 1914. The Art Nouveau architecture of the Institute of Physiology almost faithfully mirrors that of the Institute at the University of Leipzig.

Some errors were made during the addition of the storey and the construction of the main hall. In particular, the destruction of a small marble amphitheater located in the basement, which had been used for practical demonstrations for students, is noteworthy. However, it is important to understand the historical period in which we lived: the war had recently ended, and the prospects of an outsized modernism were palpable. In this atmosphere of modernism, some small pieces of equipment (kymographs, myographs, Dubois-Reymond slide stimulators, microscopes, scales, cameras) that constituted the heritage of the equipment of the Institute of Human Physiology were also dispersed. Fortunately, most of the equipment from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was found in the basement rooms and appropriately restored. Some of these devices are now on display in a corridor on the first floor of the Institute of Human Physiology, inside old chemical hoods that have been specially restored, creating an appropriate atmosphere of an ancient laboratory. Furthermore, some highly valuable books are kept there. Among them, the complete Opera Galeni Librorum Prima Classis Naturam Corporis Humani (1586) stands out. Other publications: Commentaria in omnes aphorismos Hermanni -Boerhaave de Cognos” (1775); Elementa Physiologiae corporis humani - Alberto V. Haller (1775); Opere fisico-mediche - Antonio Vallisneri (1733).