VASTARINI-CRESI, GIOVANNI

(b. Taranto, Italy, 1870; d. Naples, Italy, 14 April 1924)

anatomy, histology.

Vastarini-Cresi was lecturer, assistant professor, and then from 1905 in charge of microscopic anatomy in the Naples Antomical Institute, In 1919 Vastarini–Cresi was appointed head of the institute and was succeeded by Giovanni Antonelli, Giunio Salvi, and Riccardo Versari. Vastarini–Cresi led and austere life, entirely devoted to scientific activity and to teaching numerous puplis, especially into histological field. A scrupulous and intelligent researcher, and the author of appreciated works on morphology, he studied arteriovenous anastomosis and the hypopharynx in man. He made excellent contributions ot histological technique, especially with the method of glycogen-staining in tissues that bears his name. Lambertini reported that in studying the taste organ Vastarini-Cresi (1) asserted that vallate papillae can also arise from the rear part of the tongue, contrary to His’s doctrine, which restricts the territory of origin of the taste buds to the tuberculum impar only; (2) demonstrated the presence of a double vallate papilla rising from the declivity of Morgagni’s foramen cecum and observed the presence of retrocecal vallate papillae; and (3) described that in the lingual innervation, in addition to branches going to the taste buds on its own sides, the glossopharynx also sends fibers passing to the opposite side and reaching the central circumvallate papilla of the foramen cecum. On Vastarini–Cresi and his work, see Gastone Lambertini, Dizionario anatomico (Naples, 1949), 216, 279, 564; and “Necrologio di Giovanni Vastarini-Cresi,” in Monitore zoologico italiano, 35 (1924), 104.

Bruno Zanobio