I Classici della Nefrologia Italiana. ''Semeiologia funzionale del rene'' di Giovanni Gigli (1913-1988) e Sergio Giovannetti (1924-2000).

The monograph Semeiologia funzionale del rene (Functional semiology of the kidney) by Giovanni Gigli (1913-1988) and Sergio Giovanetti (1924-2000), published in 1953, was the first systematic survey on the subject to appear in Italy. Besides the classical renal function tests (urinalysis, BUN measurement, urea clearance), the book recounts the many new techniques that were introduced into clinical practice in that period as a result of the great advances in the field of renal physiology (e.g., glomerular filtration rate, renal plasma and blood flow, tubular water reabsorption, maximum tubular excretion and reabsorption capacity, filtration fraction). In addition, it describes the utility and pitfalls of such tests in a wide spectrum of kidney diseases, but especially in different types of glomerulonephritis, of which the two authors had collected a personal cohort of 48 patients. Today, the monograph by Gigli and Giovannetti shows the difficulties and uncertainties encountered in the evaluation of kidney diseases in a period in which renal biopsy was yet to become the widely used technique it is today.