Niccolò Massa

He lived and practice medicine in Venice his entire life and was one of the most widely respected physicians of the early sixteenth century.

[1] Massa was the author of several works beginning with a book on the French Disease which is commonly equated to modern day syphilis in 1524, Liber morbo gallico which went through several editions.

This was followed by a book on anatomy, Anatomiae Libri Introductorius, a book on fevers, the Liber de febre pestilentiali, a work in Italian, the La loica, divisa in sette libri, and a collection of his letters, Epistolae medicinales Printed collections of letters from physicians was a popular genre in the sixteenth century.

Massa mentioned important topics and figures of his day, including offering his opinion of Andreas Vesalius's Fabrica.

Massa wrote two more books, Raggionamento ... sopra le infermitia che vengono dall'aere pestilentiale del presente anno MDL and Diligens examen de venaesectione in febribus ex humorum putredine ortis, the last published just a year before he died.

Massa was a regular dissector of bodies and performed dissections both to study anatomy and to understand the causes of diseases like Syphilis.

Niccolò Massa's first publication, Liber de morbo gallico, discussed his work on the disease syphilis.

[1] The symptoms he describes were hard ulcers on the genitalia of the infected and in some cases including fever, pain in one’s extremities, swelling of the groin, hair loss, and varying manifestations on the skin.

[1] Niccolò Massa’s book, Liber de febre pestilentiali, came at a very important time as Italy was facing in epidemic in the year 1555.

This disease, in Massa’s eyes, was caused by an occurrence of warm and damp weather of which corrupted the air.