Domenico Cotugno (Fig. 1) was born in 1736 near Bari, on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy. He was given a good education in the local Jesuit school and proceeded to the medical school in Naples. He spent his entire medical career in Naples, becoming a professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Naples at the age of 30 years and holding these positions until his death in 1822.

His initial anatomic studies dealt with the ear. He became familiar with the works of Valsalva and Du Verney and was the first to describe the aqueducts connecting the cochlea and vestibule. Of greatest importance was his observation that these ducts as well as the labyrinth were filled with fluid.

His major work was De Ischiade Nervosa Commentarius, published in Naples in 1764. He dedicated this work to van Swieten, the founder of the modern school of medicine in Vienna. Although the clinical aspects of this work were considered important at the time, it is remembered now for the first complete description of the cerebrospinal fluid, which was first briefly noted by Valsalva in 1692. It also contains, almost in passing, the first description of albuminuria, which was noted in a patient with acute kidney disease.

The following extract is from an English translation of Cotugno's book, made by a student of van Swieten, Heinrich Johan Nepomuk Crantz (1722-1799), who became a professor of obstetrics in Vienna.

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