On June 6, 1842, Enrico Sertoli was born into a noble family living in Sondrio, a pleasant, northern Italian town located in the Orobic Alps.

When he was 18 years old, he matriculated in the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Pavia, where he became a resident student under the supervision of the physiologist and histologist Eusebio Oehl, an early proponent of the experimental method,[1] noted for his studies of dermal structure.

From Oehl, Sertoli acquired knowledge of biologic and microscopic techniques, working alongside such individuals as Giulio Bizzozzero, the discoverer of platelets, and Camillo Golgi, a future Nobel Prize winner.

The paper was titled, “Dell’esistenza di particolari cellule ramificate nei canalicoli seminiferi del testicolo umano” (About the existence of special, branched cells in the seminiferous tubules of the human testis).

[2] Using the microscope and unique, cellular dyeing techniques, he demonstrated previously unseen, branching, tree-like cells with the bases of their “trunks” abutting the inner wall of the seminiferous tubules.

After graduating from medical school, Sertoli was awarded a grant to conduct research at the University of Vienna (Austria) in the laboratory of Professor E.W.

Excerpt from a letter written by the Rector G. Cantoni, dated 18 October 1865: "In seguito al felice esito da lei sortito negli esami (...) per un posto di studio all’estero, il Regio Ministero dell’Istruzione pubblica (...) le ha aggiudicato un sussidio di lire 2400 per un anno, affinchè ella possa perfezionarsi in Vienna nella scienza della Fisiologia e Istologia.

[7] When an armistice was called, he received a short military leave in Sondrio before being sent with the 68th Regiment of the Infantry to mitigate a rebellion in Palermo, Sicily.

After leaving the military in 1867, Sertoli obtained an appointment as an assistant in the Laboratory of Physiology in Tübingen, Germany, where he studied the functions of blood proteins and the pulmonary elimination of carbonic acid.

Thinking of how a remarkable intuition can fade into oblivion brings to mind sadder cases, such as Ignaz Semmelweis:[9] the forerunner of antisepsis, he was rejected and forgotten by the scientific community of his time, only to gain his well-deserved place among the great names of medicine after his death.