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When, in the 1980s, Gian Battista Lanzani, then director of the Giornale di Brescia, decided – first in Italy – to add a page on medicine to the Sunday leaflet, sensing that the themes of health, well-being and ethics would increasingly involve the reader, after the first issues published, I received a telephone call from a polite doctor who proposed to develop a topical issue at the time. Doctor Augusto Paganuzzi, endocrinologist who died on Sunday at the age of 96 on 2 November, had preceded that phone call by a series of letters to the editor with which he opened the eyes (and consciences) of readers to relevant topics related to the subject in which he was a specialist , knowing how to translate the complexities of medicine so that the language was understandable to all without ever failing the indispensable scientific rigour. And always with responsibility towards life.
The initial telephone acquaintance with Augusto Paganuzzi continued for many months, transforming a winter Sunday into a personal acquaintance, favored by the shared passion for the mountains in all its forms, which would have taken him to 91 years of age to “pull” the last curves on skis. Son of Ettore Paganuzzi, principal of Calini, studied at Arnaldo and graduated in Medicine in Pavia where he had been president of Fuci from 1947 to 1949, after the first seasons as a doctor conducted in Molinetto and specialization in internal medicine and endocrinology, he had the responsibility of the medical department of the San Camillo clinic, committing himself as a “healthcare doctor” – as he liked to define himself – also looking at those who could not afford private visits. He was president of the Catholic doctors of Brescia from 1981 to 2001 (position later assumed by Massimo Gandolfini), councilor and secretary of the order from ’59 to ’65, member of the Bioethics Commission, co-founder of the Union of Italian premarital and matrimonial centers , founder of Omni.
Married to Anna Bello, pharmacist, father of five daughters with whom he had fourteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, was a Catholic who never separated his profession from his faith: since 1955 he has been one of the promoters of the Pro Familia institute, wanted by Don Giovanni Battista Zuaboni for the construction and formation of Christian families, he never renounced his solid convictions , defending them from the rising «cancel culture» and from attempts at widespread homologation. He was the author of publications for La Scuola («Sarai mamma»), Queriniana («Natural methods for regulating births») and of numerous interventions in national magazines.
During the war, from 1941 he was part of a group of young people who helped the numerous charitable initiatives of the bishop Monsignor Giacinto Tredici, supported and coordinated by his late secretary, Monsignor Angelo Pietrobelli, while his friendship with Franco Passarella, met in the Incis house of via Veneto, had led him to approach the Resistance, as he himself wrote in a memory of his friend, frequenting don Giuseppe Antonioli and Federica Lunardi. Under the spiritual guidance of Father Carlo Manziana he had followed one of the first family spirituality groups born in Italy while, with president Antonio Gorio, he had been director of the diocesan commission of Catholic Action concerning the family. The funeral of Augusto Paganuzzi will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 4 January, at 1.45 pm in the parish church of San Gaudenzio di Mompiano, starting from the funeral home of the Domus Salutis. After the funeral he will be accompanied to the Mompiano cemetery.
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