UNO STRANO TRAPIANTO TRA DARWIN E MANTEGAZZA

Abstract

In the centennial anniversary of the death of the Italian pathologist, anthropologist and writer Paolo Mantegazza (1910), the University of Pavia planned a commemorative exhibition to show the versatile aspects of his scientific and literary activity. In the course of the research to prepare the exposition, a strange cheratinic horn was found at the Museum for the History of the University of Pavia labeled as ‘spur of a cock transplanted into an ear of a cow’. At the end of some historical investigation, we found that this strange object was at the centre of a scientific correspondence between Mantegazza and Charles Darwin, who made reference to it in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.