The modern physiology, as experimental discipline, was born in the University of Palermo in the 1820s thanks to Michele Foderà, a young doctor born in Agrigento who had been able to attend Magendie Laboratory in Paris thanks  to a scholarship granted to him by Francis I Bourbon, the King of the Two Sicilies. Foderà carried out there interesting valuable researches especially into the Physiology of the nervous system.

Since 1801, in the Palermo Royal Academy of Studies (turned into Royal University of Studies in 1805), as in other italian universities, Physiology becomes an  autonomous discipline, following the split of Theoretical Medicine into Physiology and Pathology  teachings. This division is not only  nominal, but also concerns contents and methods:  we move from the conception of Physiology as a sort of “natural philosophy”, that is simply a dialectical exercise, towards a true science based on observation and experimentation, with a markedly Galilean spirit. This new approach of scientific research in Physiology requires the needs to  provide new spaces and tools.

Unfortunately, it was not until 1914 that Physiology had its own seat, the present one in Corso Tukory, while up to that time the activity was carried out in some narrow rooms in the Convent of Teatini in via Maqueda, at that time the seat of all the Universitiy Faculties.

The Institute of “Human Physiology” was legally recognized in 1914 (previously known as the “Cabinet of  Experimental Physiology”). During the fifties (Director Prof. V. Zagami) it was expanded with the construction of a second floor and a large and  functional room for lessons with 250 seats.