Vomiting stones : mental illness and forensic medicine in 18. century Italy

In 1746 the case of a young woman vomiting stones, nails, glasses and other foreign bodies came to the notice of the general scientific and religious communities. The Bishop of Cremona, Alessandro Maria Litta (1671-1754), deemed that a scientific-medical approach was necessary. Paolo Valcarenghi (d. 1780), one of the most famous of Cremona's physicians, was charged with this task. Many physicians, both local and from the wider area of Northern Italy, became actively involved in the discussion: Martino Ghisi (1715-1794), who was the first to describe diphtheria on a scientific basis; Carlo Francesco Cogrossi (1682-1769, Professor of Practical Medicine at Padua University), who is noted for his parasitic theory of contagion; Carlo Gandini (1705-1788), who introduced some typical traditional Chinese Medicine practices into Italian medicine; and Francesco Roncalli Parolino (1692-1769), who recorded the case in his work entitled Europae medicina a sapientibus illustrata et a comite Francisco Roncalli Parolino observationibus adaucta (1747), a foundational work in the reconstruction of medical praxis in Europe. Their work is amongst the earliest texts from the Italian Peninsula to deny the natural formation of stones in the stomach, with the debate between the religious and scientific communities resulting in the acceptance of the medical explanation