ANTONIO SCARPA

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Scarpa’s Triangle

The American Journal of Surgery

N.S.Vol.VI.June. 1929

SCARPA’S TRIANGLE NTONIO Scarpa was born in 1747

A and died 1832. Physicians wiII remember meeting

his name as students in their freshman or sophomore year anatomy course. One of the questions frequentIy asked an under- graduate is : “ Bound Scarpa’s triangIe.” Later in Iife as mature surgeons this triangIe pIays a routine part in certain operations.

Scarpa was a many-sided individual. He was a writer of note. He carried on independent investigations and made note- worthy discoveries. He was a great anato- mist and aIso as a surgeon won renown in his day. As a surgeon he was skiIIed in severa departments of this branch of medicine. He was exceptionaIIy skiIIfu1 as an orthopedist and an ophthomoIogist. To him is given the credit for the discovery of the membranous Iabyrinth, the naso- paIatine nerve, and the triangIe of the thigh which bears his name. He was the first to decIare that arterioscIerosis is a Iesion of the inner coats of the arteries.

As a writer he covered many subjects. He wrote a worthwhiIe book on hernia and eye diseases. He originated the pro- cedure of iridodiaIysis. He devised and made a shoe for club-foot which is stiII

sometimes used, more or Iess modified, by orthopedists. His greatest work was the “TabuIae Nevrologicae” (Pavia, I 794). In this for the first time is given the proper deIineation of the nerves of the heart.

We read that Scarpa was “an irre- proachabIe Latinist, a master of sarcasm, yet a most attractive teacher and a draughtsman of the first order” (Garrison).

He comes down the years as one of the few medica men who have iIIustrated their own books. His artistic ski11 was of the highest order. As an artist his fame wouId have endured the centuries. He trained Faustino AnderIoni to execute the copper engravings from his drawings (ChouIant). We quote from that student and expert of medica history, Garrison: “Scarpa’s iIIustrations are the crown and flower of achievement in anatomic pen- drawing, whiIe AnderIoni’s wonderfu1 copper-pIates of the same are comparabIe in brie with the work of Sharp, the Drevets, and other masters of the best period of Iine engraving.”

After Iiving a fuI1 Iife, a Iife of diversified vocations and avocations and interests, he died at the ripe age of eighty-five years.

T. S. W.