Bottini, Enrico

Though he graduated in Turin in 1860, Enrico Bottini (Stradella, September 7th 1835 – Sanremo, March 11th 1903) quickly moved on to the University of Pavia, where he became assistant of Surgical Pathology.

In 1864 he was given the chair of Surgical Anatomy, which he left the subsequent year to take on the roles of professor of Obstetrics and chief surgeon at the Major Hospital of Novara, positions which he retained for over ten years and which gave him vast experience.

He returned to Pavia in 1877, to accept the chair of Clinical Surgery which had been held by Luigi Porta.

His scientific production was intense. Among his published work, it is worth mentioning Dell’azione dell’acido fenico nella chirurgia pratica e nella tassidermica (On the action of phenic acid in practical and taxidermist surgery, in Annali universali di medicina, CXCVIII [1866], pp. 585-636). In this opus, Bottini shows he already clearly understood the concept of phenic acid antisepsis and its importance on a practical level (he applied the acid on infect wounds to destroy microphytes); Bottini developed his technique, by applying A. Bassi and L. Pasteur’s discoveries, before the world ever came to know of Lister’s method.

As a pathologist, he was vividly interested in the big discoveries of his time, which signalled the beginning of bacteriology. In 1871, he wrote Sulla gangrena traumatica invadente (On traumatic invasive gangrene, Giorn. d. R. Acc. di med. di Torino, 10, pp. 1121-1138), being the first to demonstrate its infective nature and its injectability; he described its clinical picture exhaustively and comprehensively.

His 1880 work on antiseptic laparotomy references Bottini’s experience in antisepsis in abdominal surgery, while his 1896 La chirurgia del collo (Neck surgery), published in German, had great success and circulation.

Bottini was a brilliant, virtuoso surgeon who developed several innovative surgical procedures, such as the techniques for intraoral maxilla resection, subperiosteal mandible resection, fixed jaw clenching treatment, goiter extirpation and larynx total amputation.

He successfully completed extremely bold, daring surgeries, never before undertaken, such as the resection of the superior (ascending??) vena cava – a technique completely new to the world of medicine – and the trans vaginal hysterectomy (uterine cancer).

He developed unique adjustments, new techniques and peculiar instruments for urological surgical procedures. Worth mentioning, given its originality and great interest aroused, is the thermogalvanic incision of the prostate – an alternative to permanent catheters and total prostatectomy. In his monography On prostatic ischuria, published in 1900, Bottini detailed his vast experience in this field.

He was first elected to the house of parliament and later to senate, and worked to solve many of the problems surrounding University life. He always nurtured great affection for his University, to which he gladly procured means for renovations. He died in Sanremo after a short illness, in 1903.