Giovanni Battista Cambieri and the Beginning of Venereology in Rijeka Region

In 1790, an infectious disease appeared in the village of Škrljevo near Rijeka, and spread to the nearby villages and then to Istria, Slovenia and other parts of Croatia. In 1800, the nature of the disease was first investigated by the protomedicus Massich, who believed it was a combination of syphilis and scabies. After him, the protomedicus of the region G. B. Cambieri, who graduated in Pavia and came to Rijeka in 1797, studied the illness, gave a description of the disease and believed it was a morbus sui generis, and termed it morbus of Scherlievo. He was a gifted physician, used all his knowledge, skills and organization capabilities to arrest the disease, and published his works in Italian journals (in 1812 and 1819). Cambieri studied the disease in thousands of patients in local hospitals, and took the initiative to open a new Civic Hospital with a department of syphilidology. He divided the disease into four stages and with permission of the authorities he tried different therapies. With time, he found the disease to be a form of syphilis and treated it with mercury compounds. After his death in 1838, he left his money to the Hospital of Holy Spirit in Rijeka (Cambieri Foundation), which permitted its development