L’ISTITUTO DI FARMACOLOGIA DELL’UNIVERSITA’ DI MILANO DAL 1946 AL 1980.

Abstract

The global pandemic of Covid-19 has caused enormous damage to scientific research by dramatically reducing the functionality of the institutions responsible for it and at the same time polarizing many lines of research toward solving the pandemic problems. This situation has similarities with what happened during the Second World War. In that case, the post-war recovery was intense, also bringing many changes in the methodology and motivations of scientific research. In this paper I analyzed, as a model of post-war rebirth, that of the Institute of Pharmacology of the University of Milan that became from a small laboratory a research and teaching institution based on human and scientific concepts that were innovative at the time. Its birth started in the years 1946-47, was favored by the collaboration between private and public institutions (the De Marchi Foundation, the University of Milan and the Municipality of Milan), was build by the scientists as a high-level, broad-based international study center, and formed the basis of a possible example of a university campus. The methodological and conceptual development of a new pharmacology and its growth in researchers and scientific purposes are outlined. The birth from this Institute of the Mario Negri Research Institute, of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Milan, of the Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology Center of the CNR and of the Lombardy Biomedical Library System is briefly described. The different reactions to a global damage brought to science and research in the post-war and post-pandemic periods are discussed.