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Italian entomologist ()

Agostino Bassi, sometimes called de Lodi (25 September – 8 February ), was an Italian entomologist.

He preceded Louis Pasteur in the discovery that microorganisms can be the cause of disease (the germ theory of disease). He discovered that the muscardine disease of silkworms was caused by a living, very small, parasitic organism, a fungus that would be named eventually Beauveria bassiana in his honor.

In , he stated the idea that not only animal (insect), but also human diseases are caused by other living microorganisms; for example, measles, syphilis, and the plague.

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Early life

He was the son of a wealthy farmer and a lawyer who also had a passion for biology. However, his father did not want him to take up biology, but wanted him instead to look after the family's property, to become a civil servant and to join the Imperial administration.

Bassi did so, but also followed the lessons of Lazzaro Spallanzani, a relative, unt