Antonio Negro was born in Alassio on June 17th, 1908.
His entire pre-university education was entrusted to the Salesian Institute, founded by Saint Giovanni Bosco. After graduating from high school in humanities, he enrolled in the Philadelphia Medical College, chaired by Constantine Hering, the father of American homeopathy (…I was 12-years-old when I learned the word “homeopathy”).
In Genoa he attended lessons given by great professors such as Maragliano, Pende, Remotti and Tusini. His meeting with Nicola Pende, who at the time was inspiring modern Italian endocrinology, was decisive for his scientific training and his clinical orientation. He became Pende’s pupil and followed him to Rome when Pende was transferred to La Sapienza University, working alongside him from 1935 to 1950.
Although kept busy by academic and hospital life alongside his mentor, and his work at the Celio Military Hospital during the war, Antonio Negro did not
Rome Policlinico Umberto I
forget homeopathic medicine while he was in Rome. He studied it in depth and verified its therapeutic effectiveness, encouraged by his studies in Pende’s endocrinology and orthogenesis (disciplines in which he qualified as a university lecturer) and constitutionalism. He joined the Roman Homeopathic Centre (COR) and the National Italian Homeopathic Association (ANOI), which consisted of a small group of doctors, among them Cigliano, Chinaglia, Galeazzi Lisi, Gagliardi and the Tosi brothers. Thanks to this commitment Italian homeopathy survived the decline experienced at the end of the 19th century, that continued also after World War I. Antonio Negro, who soon became the director of the COR, understood the urgent need for renewal.
After hosting at his home a number of young doctors and students wishing to learn about homeopathy, on July 19th, 1947, together with his first colleagues in this field (Baratta, Pavignano, Santini, Sardoni) and a number of supporters (De Leva, Lucenti, Pantaleo, Ristori), he founded the Centro Ippocratico Hahnemanniano Italiano (C.I.H.I.) (“…..it is on this Italian homeopathic scientific movement that the spreading of homeopathy in our country depends, a country that should achieve the development achieved in other nations”). This event marked the birth of modern Italian homeopathy, to the development of which he was to devote his entire life. The C.I.H.I., which had its headquarters in Via G. Belli, was soon joined by the Italian Homeopathic Association (A.O.I.), with its travelling homeopathic library and a homeopathic surgery for the poor. In 1947, the C.I.H.I. inaugurated a course in homeopathic medicine and the first lessons were held at the Nobile Collegio Chimico Farmaceutico, moving two years later to the C.I.H.I.’s new headquarters in Via G. Cesare. In 1949 the Institute of Homeopathic Medicine (I.M.O.) was created with centres in Rome and in Milan. Count Giancarlo Dal Verme, a tenacious promoter of homeopathy, now also started to work with Negro. Thanks to the I.M.O.’s work, homeopathy aroused increasing interest also in the pharmaceutical world.
Paris,1951
At the beginning of the fifties, Antonio Negro broadened his international contacts, especially with Leon Vannier’s French school and Pierre Schmidt’s Swiss school. In 1953 he founded the Accademia Italiana di Medicina Omeopatica Hahnemanniana (the Italian Academy of Hahnemannian Homeopathic Medicine A.I.M.O.H.). Courses, which continue today, were inaugurated by Pende at the new centre in Piazza Navona. The academy very quickly became a reference point for Italian homeopaths. Other students cooperated with him (Catena, Croce, Fontana, Leoni, Mosso). The “Review of Homeopathic Medicine” (Rassegna di Medicina Omeopatica) was then published as the academy’s official newspaper and thanks to this scientific work intensified, as did the spreading of homeopathy. Institutional interest increased thanks to the organisation of many national congresses and, over the years, came under the aegis of Presidents of the Italian Republic Sandro Pertini, Francesco Cossiga and Oscar Scalfaro, also due to their personal respect for Antonio Negro and his initiatives. The Italian Health Ministry appointed him as its “point of reference” for the Homeopathic Medicine Commission.
In the seventies Antonio Negro started two new projects. In Rome, in 1972, he set up the Society of
With Nicola Pende
Homeopathic Surgeries (Società Ambulatori di Medicina Omeopatica, S.A.M.O.), with a number of his new students, among them his son Francesco Eugenio, who later became its director. That same year the “Series of Homeopathic Medicine” (Collana di Medicina Omeopatica published by Fratelli Palombi Editori) appeared and was personally edited by him. In 1970, in cooperation the chemist-pharmacist and doctor, Alma Rodriguez, Antonio Negro started the reorganisation of homeopathic medicine in Naples, a project that would keep him busy for twenty years. He founded the Neapolitan Centre of Homeopathic Medicine (Centro di Medicina Omeopatica Partenopea, CE.M.O.N.), named after Tommaso Cigliano. In 1976, together with Thomas Paschero (Buenos Aires), Proceso Ortega (Mexico City) and Rodriguez, he created the “Samuele Hahnemann” Free International University of Homeopathic Medicine (L.U.I.M.O.), which resulted in close cooperation with South American schools of homeopathy. That same year he was elected vice-president of the Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, an appointment he held until he was made an honorary member in 1988.
Teaching at Piazza Navona
In spite of his age, in 1991 Antonio Negro embarked on a new project in Rome, where, with a group of new students and in cooperation with Maria Letizia Salvi, he founded the Italian School of Homeopathic Medicine (S.I.M.H.O.), which he directed until the end of his life. It was at S.I.M.H.O. that he created the “Evelino Leonardi Homeopathic Library”, the “Ferdinando Meconi Homeopathic Group” and the Bio-pathology and Orthogenesis Study Centre. He promoted the “Similia similibus curentur” publishing series and in 2006 created the “S. Hahnemann Award”.
The Museum of Homeopathy in Piazza Navona was his final project. Planned since 2006, the museum obtained the
With Pope Paul VI
Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s patronage. In 2007 he edited the Italian Homeopathic Bibliography. In 2008, on his 100th birthday, Antonio Negro entrusted to the museum his medical library, his private archives and his collection of homeopathic memorabilia.
Antonio Negro died in Rome on March 25th, 2010.
100th Birthday
Everyone shared an awareness that they had lost the “father” of modern Italian homeopathy and universally mourned the humanity he had expressed in practising his profession. The profound spirituality that characterised him was acknowledged by Pius XII , Paul VI, Benedict XVI. The Roman Diocese awarded him the “Good Samaritan” Prize. In his eulogy, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia remembered him as “a friend of God, a doctor to humankind.”