Perroncito, Aldo

Born in Turin in 1882, Aldo Perroncito was son to famed parasitologist Edoardo Perroncito and to Erminia Aletti, Camillo Golgi’s sister-in-law and Giulio Bizzozero’s niece.

After a brilliant turn in highschool, Perroncito enrolled into Pavia University, starting as of the very first year as student intern at the General Pathology Institute. He graduated with honours in 1905 and was assistant to Camillo Golgi until 1910, all the while also studying at the Berlin Physiology Institute and at the Medical faculty of Paris.

Perroncito won several international study awards. Premi di studio and taught General pathology at Cagliari University before returning to Pavia in 1922 as successor to the chair that had been Camillo Golgi’s. His name is linked to the discovery of peripheral nerves regeneration, which was published at the same time as Santiago Ramón y Cajal. However, Perroncito preceded the Spanish scientist in describing the precocious modifications of the proximal stump after cut of the nerve.

The Pavia University alumnus also gave important contributions to the study of kinetics of the Golgi’s apparatus during mitosis (ditiocinesis), of pellagra, of platelet formation and of portal circulation.

Medic Major during the Great War, he died in Pavia in 1929 of a tubercular infection.