Filippo Pacini (25 May 1812 – 9 July 1883) was an Italian anatomist, posthumously famous for isolating the cholera bacterium Vibrio cholerae in 1854, well before Robert Koch's more widely accepted discoveries 30 years later. Pacini was born in Pistoia, Tuscany, to Francesco, a humble cobbler, and Umiltà Dolfi, but was given a religious education in hopes that he would become a bishop. However, in 1830, he was given a scholarship to the most venerable medical school in Pistoia. He learned his job as a doctor and how to examine and dissect dead bodies under a microscope. In 1831, during a dissection class, Pacini discovered small sensory organs in the nervous system which can detect pressure and vibrations. He studied them closely from 1833 on, and first discussed them in 1835 at the Società medico-fisica in Florence, but did not publish his research ("Nuovi organi scoperti nel corpo umano") until 1840. Within just a few years, the work was widely known in Europe and the bodies had become known as Pacinian corpuscles. He served as an assistant to Paolo Savi in Pisa from 1840 to 1843, then began working at the Institute of Human Anatomy. He was professor of anatomy at the University of Pisa from 1844 to 1846. In 1847, Pacini began teaching at the Lyceum in Florence, and then was named chair of General and Topographic Anatomy at the "Istituto di Studi Superiori" at the University of Florence in 1849, where he remained to the end of his career. The Asiatic cholera pandemic of 1846-63 was the time period when Pacini made his discovery of the cholera bacillus. Cholera came to Florence in 1854 during the Asiatic Cholera Pandemic of 1846-63. Pacini became very interested in the disease. Immediately following the death of cholera patients, he performed an autopsy and with his microscope, conducted histological examinations of the intestinal mucosa. During such studies, Pacini discovered a comma-shaped bacillus which he described as a Vibrio. He published a paper in 1854 entitled, "Microscopical observations and pathological deductions on cholera" in which he described the organism and its relation to the disease. His microscopic slides of the organism were clearly labeled, identifying the date and nature of his investigations (see figure). But because of the prevailing belief of Italian scientists in the miasma theory of disease, the work was not noted by others until many years after his death, despite