[2] Emmanuel Ciprian Amoroso was born on 16 September 1901 in Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, one of 12 siblings in a Catholic family; the third eldest child, he had seven brothers and two sisters.
[3] His father, Thomas Amoroso, was a bookkeeper[4] who later owned estates dealing mainly in cocoa, and his mother Juliana Centeno was of Venezuelan (Spanish) descent.
[4] At UCD, he received an array of student awards and scholarships, with prizes in botany, zoology, chemistry and physics (1923), anatomy and physiology (1925), pathology, pharmacology, materia medica and therapeutics (1927), and medicine, obstetrics, and the John McArdle Medal in surgery (1929).
[3] In 1929 he graduated MB BCh BAO with first-class honours, achieving the highest marks ever attained in the final medical exam (while also doing some amateur boxing),[4] after which he completed his surgical internship at the now defunct Jervis Street Hospital in Dublin.
After a chance meeting with Hewlett Johnson, later to be known as the "red dean of Canterbury", Amoroso was told about an opening with the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) for a senior assistant for histology and embryology, and he successfully applied for the position, his appointment taking effect in October 1934.
[5] Thereafter, he moved from London to Cambridge, living in Cherry Hinton, and in 1969 was appointed visiting scientist at the Agricultural Research Council's Institute of Animal Physiology at Babraham in Cambridgeshire.
[5] Additionally, during the 1970s, he often lectured internationally, holding visiting professorships in Australia, Canada, Chile, the US, and Nairobi, Kenya, and in 1973 was appointed Special Professor to the Department of Physiology and Environmental Studies at the University of Nottingham.
He threw new light on the evolutionary adaptation of the placenta for viviparous reproduction, his conclusions being based not just on his own researches and experience as a microanatomist and general biologist, but on his familiarity with the literature in several disciplines.
[11] In 1971, the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, named him Professor Emeritus with the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa in recognition of his research and contributions to the development of the field of medicine.
"[5] Highlighting his style, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes: "He possessed the ability to distil complex arguments and to identify key facts from which he presented a lucid and elegant summary.
His mastery of the English language was complete and generations of students were captivated by the literary flair of this man who was slightly larger than life with a touch of flamboyance—cigar, pocket handkerchief, and bow-tie—who referred to himself as an Afro-Saxon.
"[4] An eloquent public speaker,[3] he had a sense of humour that was "exemplified by an account of an invitation to dinner with a rich widow in New York, with Professors Wislocki and Dempsey, two anatomists who hoped to obtain funds for their research.