Italian Girolamo Fabrici
born May 20, 1537, Acquapendente, Italy
died May 21, 1619, Padua
Italian surgeon and anatomist.
He studied under and later succeeded Gabriel Fallopius at the University of Padua (15621613). The first clear description of the valves of the veins, in his De venarum ostiolis (1603), provided his pupil William Harvey with a crucial point in his argument for blood circulation. His De formato foetu (1600) contained the first detailed description of the placenta and opened the field of comparative embryology. He was the first to perceive the larynx as a vocal organ and to demonstrate that the pupil of the eye changes size.