Italian entomologist and academic (born 1773)

Agostino Bassi

Agostino Bassi, sometimes called de Lodi, was an Italian entomologist. He preceded Louis Pasteur in the discovery that microorganisms can be the cause of disease. He discovered that the muscardine disease of silkworms was caused by a living, very small, parasitic organism, a fungus that would be named eventually Beauveria bassiana in his honor. In 1844, he stated the idea that not only animal (insect), but also human diseases are caused by other living microorganisms; for example, measles, syphilis, and the plague.