Ever wonder who coined the term
vagina? Or who discovered the
fallopian tubes? Well, now you know.
Gabriele Falloppio (
1523-
1562) was born in
Modena,
Italy and served as a
canon in the local church. He turned to
medicine, studying under
Andreas Vesalius at
Padua. At first, he was a
surgeon, but that didn’t work out so well because his patients had a habit of frequently dying. So he turned to
anatomy, teaching at Padua and
Pisa, since he had an ample supply of corpses. He studied corpses of humans and dead
lions from the
Medici zoo and was even accused of cutting up the living.
His
Observationes anatomicae (
1561) details his work. He was a key figure in the history of anatomy. He studied and mapped facial
nerves and the canals of the
ear. But his specialty was female anatomy. Falloppio is responsible for naming the
vagina (
Latin, "sheath") and
placenta (Latin, "flat cake"). He also named the
clitoris, but like many men, wasn’t quite sure how it worked. He did successfully explain the workings of the
hymen, but was unable to discern the function of the
fallopian tubes named for him. His extensive work was built upon by future scientists, including the generation of students he taught, such as
Geronimo Fabricius.
He was also known as a
botanist and was superintendent of the
botanical gardens in Padua.