Angelo Celli

Who was Angelo Celli?

Angelo Celli was an Italian physician and zoologist who studied malaria.

Celli graduated in medicine in 1878 at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he became hygiene professor. In 1880 with Ettore Marchiafava he studied a new protozoan discovered by Alphonse Laveran and which they called Plasmodium. Subsequently it was shown to be the causative agent of malaria. He studied the biology and pathogenesis of malarial plasmodium for years after this working with Ettore Marchiafava, Amico Bignami, Giovanni Battista Grassi and Giuseppe Bastianelli.

Angelo Celli is famous in Rome for his achievements as a hygienist, sociologist and deputy. After the formation of the Chinino_di_stato it:Chinino di stato a state organisation controlling prices of drugs, preventing sales of illegal or counterfeit drugs and prosecuting speculators he ensured that this applied to malaria medicines.The drugs were soon supplied free to the poor.

At the time the Pontine Marshes, the wetlands in Tuscany for instance Maremma and Basilicata were malarial areas. Francisco Saverio Nitti asserted that Atella, as an example, remained deserted until the adoption of the laws passed by the Chinino di Stato. Since the populations were illiterate and had a fatalistic attitude to malaria “Le Scuole per i Contadini dell'Agro Romano e le Paludi Pontine” in English, "Schools for the Peasants of Agro Romana and Paludi Pontine" to educate and inform them. This scheme was subsequently adopted by Argentina and Greece.