On the occasion of the anniversary of the Air and Space Medicine Department, the new ‘Teaching Centre’ was inaugurated in the presence of General Draghi. The ceremony, presided over by Air Division General Fabrizio Draghi, Commander of the CSV, saw the new RMAS complex’s lecture halls named after Air Health Corps Medical Generals Tommaso Lomonaco and Aristide Scano, key figures in aerospace medicine, who with their professionalism and ingenuity, contributed to the development and growth of aeronautical medicine, bringing lustre and prestige to the RMAS itself and to the Air Force.
General Lomonaco was indeed a precursor in the 1940s of the multidisciplinary approach to aerospace sciences; he made the intuitive leap that aeronautical engineering cannot help but interact with medicine, which later consolidated into the inseparable relationship between medicine and astronautics and is today embodied in the CSV.
However, General Scano was one of the most original pioneers in the study of Human Physiology in the aeronautical and space fields. Also attending the ceremony were Inspector General Ottavio Sarlo, Director General of Military Health and Head of the Aeronautical Health Corps, and Inspector General Enrico Tomao, Head of the Health Service of the AM Logistics Command. The families of Generals Lomonaco and Scano were present, along with previous Heads of the RMAS. Colonel Giuseppe Ciniglio Appiani, the current Head of Department, recounted the history of aeronautical and then space medicine from the early 1900s to the present day, showing unpublished images and footage and presenting a small commemorative volume with the challenging title ‘Historia magistra vitae‘. Subsequently, the two youngest Medical Officers of the Department paid tribute to Generals Lomonaco and Scano, and a memento of the event was presented to their families.
