Professione: head surgeon at Fiume (Rijeka) Civil Hospital
Luogo: Rijeka and Kvarner
Autore: Gianpaolo Dabbeni

Born in Draguc of Istria on June 7th 1849 from an ancient and worthy local family, he graduated in Wien in Medicine and Surgery in 1875. For some years Grossich practiced as medical officer in Kastav.
He got the professorship of Surgery at the Innsbruck University followed in 1886 by the designation of Head Surgeon at Rijeka Civil Hospital; his reputation and the undeniable scientific competence caused a big rush of patients from Dalmatia, Istria and Croatia.
Grossich experimented the use of iodine in pre-surgery sterilization and, thanks to this new method, in 1909 he was invited to to Budapest to the Surgery International Congress; in that occasion all the lecturers spoke German or French but, unlike the others, he used Italian to bind the importance of his discovery to the country he considered his real homeland.
Following the advice of Rijeka doctor, during the Libyan war, the Italian Government equipped the soldiers with a medication set containing sterile bandage and iodine vials, this helped to save many men’s life: as award of his merits he received in 1912 the Commandery  of the Reign.
Rijeka Hospital has always been a good setting where was manifest a strong national attitude towards Italy, after Grossich’s  international celebration a significant irredentist feeling began to rise, for this reason the doctor was looked at  with increasing suspicion by the Hungarian authorities. He became one of the most active militants of Rijeka irredentism and when, after Vittorio Veneto, instead of the expected Italian, came the Croatian he was unanimously elected President of the National Council that on 30th October 1918 enacted the historic statement: “ The National Council, gathered today in plenary, declares that by virtue of that privilege, in the name of which all the nations have risen up to national independence and freedom, the city of Rijeka, that until now it was a separate body, component a national Italian municipality, claimed even for itself the right of self-determination of the people. According to this right, the National Council declared Rijeka united to its Motherland, Italy. (Italian National Council of Rijeka. Rijeka, 30th October 1918, doc. Antonio Grossich, Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy, President).
At last Italian came e and Croatian went away, but the political fight persisted until 1924.
When Gabriele D’Annunzio, commanding officer of the National Occupation Corpse, declared the regentship of Kvarner, Grossich resigned from president of the Council because he had sworn to fight only for annexation and not for a regentship. After the annexation, Antonio Grossich entered in Palazzo Madama, in Rome, as the first senator of redeemed Rijeka; but before this he had the highest satisfaction to give, on Adamich (Audace) pier, to the Fatherland and to the King representing it, the antiquated keys of the city saved by him.
He died in 1926. After the World War II, his bust, adorning and honouring Rijeka Hospital, had been removed by the Yugoslav usurper.