Vincenzo Tiberio

Vincenzo Tiberio (May 1, 1869 – January 7, 1915) was an Italian researcher and medical officer of the Medical Corps of the Italian Navy and physician at the University of Naples. Observing that people complained of intestinal disorders after the walls of a well which supplied drinking water was cleaned off, he published a little noticed 1895 paper on the bactericidal effect of some molds, 35 years before Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin.

Early life and education Vincenzo Tiberio was born in Sepino (Molise, province of Campobasso) on May 1, 1869. His father, Domenicantonio, was a notary; his mother, Filomena Guacci, came from an upper-middle-class family. He had one brother, Sebastiano. When Vincenz was only seven years old (1876) his mother died and his father married Rosa Palladino di Guardiaregia. In the fourth year of university he started to go regularly to the Institute for Hygiene, directed by the professor Eugenio Fazio, who was studying the vital competition of bacteria. He hypothesized about the relationship between the absence of molds and the growth of pathogenic bacteria in the intestine.

Writings and reviews "Esame chimico, macroscopico e batterioscopico di due farine lattee italiane." Vincenzo Tiberio, Annali dell'Istituto d'Igiene sperimentale della R. Università di Roma, 1893. "Sugli estratti di alcune muffe." Vincenzo Tiberio, Annali di Igiene sperimentale, 1895, volume 5, pp. 91–103. "Varietà e cura dell'angina pectoris", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica 298, 1894, a. X, N. 286 "Indicazione alla colecistectomia", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, 1895, a. XI, N. 27. "Notizie sul colera", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, 1895, a. XI, N. 39 "La batterioterapia nella tubercolosi", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, 1895, a.XI, N. 131. "Cura delle complicazioni nei feriti e negli operati", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, 1895, a.XI, N. 145. "Sugli impulsi irresistibile degli epilettici", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, 1895, a.XI, N. 146. "Sulla cura radicale della ipertrofia prostatica", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, July 1, 1895, a.XI, N. 151. "Sulla tossiterapia dei tumori maligni", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, July 3, 1895, a.XI, N. 153. "Sul parassitismo dei tumori maligni", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, July 8, 1895, a.XI, N. 157. "Sulle angine pseudo difteriche", Vincenzo Tiberio, reviewed in Riforma Medica, July 26, 1895, a.XI, N. 173 .