Angelo Ruffini

Angelo Ruffini (Pretare of Arquata del Tronto; 1864–1929) was an Italian histologist and embryologist.

He was the first to describe small encapsulated nerve endings (mechanoreceptors) which were to become known as Ruffini corpuscles.

He used a gold chloride stain on his microscope slides in order to view the tiny corpuscles.

[1] Ruffini was a pioneer in the study of amphibian gastrulation, providing a comprehensive and detailed description on the formation of "bottle cells".

[3] This relationship evolved after Ruffini sent copies of his papers on muscle nerve endings[4][5] to Sherrington.