Antonino D’Antona was born in Riesi (Caltanisetta) on December 18, 1842, the son of Antonino and Concetta Debilio. After completing his classical studies in Sicily and after enrolling at the University of Palermo, where he attended the first four years of the medical course, he moved to Naples. He was guided since childhood by the care of a paternal uncle, the archpriest Gaetano D'Antona, who also followed him in the years of his university education. Antonino only had one child: Carlo D’Antona.
He lived in Rome in Villino Durante.
Adulthood
D'Antona received his Medical Degree at 23 years old in 1865. He intended to improve his aptitudes and his method in study and research, dedicating a few more years to his own training. Longing to broaden his education through the knowledge of the main Italian and European scientific circles, he made study trips abroad, and for about three years, from 1866 to 1869, he attended the most renowned surgical clinics of the time: he came to Vienna, where he met Christian A. Billroth and followed his school, in Berlin where he met Langenbeck, in Bristol, where he met Spencer, and finally in Edinburgh, where he met Lister, but also in Leipzig, at JF Cohnheim; in London, he was taught by master T. S. Wells, who then formed a solid friendship with him. This internship in clinical centers of international importance gave him excellent training, oriented towards the most modern and stimulating aspects of surgery, and prepared him for the new applications of the discipline that was facing profound scientific renewals in those years.
Later life and death
In the autumn of 1912, the first signs of a serious illness appeared. Antona's strength declined in a short time, but he continued teaching for an entire academic year. In the following summer, his health conditions worsened. His death in Naples on December 21, 1913, at the age of 71 caused great condolences throughout the nation.
A monument has been erected by the municipality in Riesi, in front of his family house. For Spencer Watson, he was considered “the greatest European Clinician”. With the twentieth century and after the untimely death of D'Antona, Giovanni Pascale, a figure of great importance, in particular in the fight against tuberculosis and tumors, bursts onto the scene of Neapolitan surgery.
His main works are; Essays on abdominal surgery, Naples 1883; The new surgery of the central nervous system, Naples 1893.
D'Antona medical contribution and career
When D’Antona was 27 years old he came back to Naples and became a member of the university surgical team of Carlo Gallozzi and was nominated as preparer of operative medicine at the surgical clinic by ministerial decree of 1872 and he was confirmed until 1880. He was one of the first in Italy to introduce and make antisepsis be known. He was an eclectic surgeon and particularly passionate towards nervous system surgery, reason why he devised a method for determining the cranio-encephalic topography.
In those years he published his first scientific works: studies on inflammation, on the ulcerative process, on surgical infections, on the pathology and surgical clinic of osteo-articular diseases.
In 1881 he won the competition for the title of professor of surgical pathology at the University of Padua. In 1884 he obtained the appointment as full professor and surgeon at the University of Naples, where four years later he was additionally appointed pathologist.
In 1881, he won the national contest for a professorship in surgery at the University of Padua. In 1885 he was offered the opportunity to cover the chair of surgical clinic at the University of Modena, but he gave up to settle in Naples: in this city he had by now acquired a wide reputation that placed him among the main members of the reputed Neapolitan surgical school. On 25 October 1896 he was appointed senator of the Kingdom; nevertheless, he participated little in the work of the Senate.
Among the works on inflammation, the best known is that of Inflammation (Naples 1876), a work of the first years of research, which highlighted his scholarly skills and his capacity for scientific synthesis. On the basis of the experience gained in his study trips, he gave a complete review of the main contemporary theories on the problem, discussing them in the light of his personal observations. D’Antona linked the inflammatory process to the intervention of an inflammatory agent capable of interfering in the mechanisms of nutritional and circulatory currents, altering them profoundly.
