Giovanni Battista Monteggia

Giovanni Battista Monteggia
Born	(1762-08-08)8 August 1762 Laveno, Italy
Died	17 January 1815(1815-01-17) (aged 52) Milan, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Years active	1788-1815
Known for	Monteggia fracture
Medical career
Profession	surgeon
Field	surgery, traumatology

Giovanni Battista Monteggia (1762 – 1815) was an Italian surgeon. The Monteggia fracture is named after him.

Biography

He began training as a surgeon at age seventeen in Milan. He got his doctorate of medicine in 1789 at University of Pavia. In the same year, his first book, Fasciculi Pathologici, was published. From 1790 he practiced as a surgical assistant, prosector, and prison doctor. In 1795 he was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery, holding a chair of Istituzioni Chirurgiche at University of Pavia. He contracted syphilis after cutting himself during an autopsy.

Monteggia's grave at the Monumental Cemetery of Milan, Italy

Monteggia was second to describe the Monteggia fracture, a fracture of the proximal third of the ulna with the dislocation of the head of radius.

Monteggia was first to describe Peroneal Tendon Subluxation, when he diagnosed this injury in a ballet dancer in 1803. It is when you have subluxation/dislocation of the peroneal tendons about the lateral malleolus.