Guido Banti

The ability to observe patients in bed and then carry out post mortem examination was to prove fundamental in parts of his work.

In 1895, after a 5-year spell in a temporary post, he was appointed Ordinary Professor of Pathological Anatomy in the medical school in Florence.

This work resulted in two papers, Dell’anemia splenica and Archivo di anatomica patologica (1882) describing the condition that would be known as Banti’s disease.

He asserted in 1903 that “All leukaemias belong to the sarcomatoses”, this was contrary to the existing opinions of Artur Pappenheim and Carl von Sternberg.

Banti continued with further observations and in 1913 decided that the leukaemias are systematic diseases arising from the haemopoietic structures, bone marrow and lymph glands, and that they are the result of the uncontrolled proliferation of staminal blood cells.