BIO181 Chapter 1: Major Themes of Anatomy & Physiology

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering subdisciplines of anatomy and physiology, historical figures in medical science, microscopy advancements, experimental design principles, and evolutionary concepts from Chapter 1.

Anatomy

The study of body structure.

Physiology

The study of body function.

Inspection

Examining the structure of the human body by looking at its appearance.

Palpation

Examining the human body by feeling a structure with the hands.

Auscultation

Listening to sounds produced by the body.

Percussion

Tapping on the body, feeling for resistance, and listening to emitted sound for abnormalities.

Dissection

Cutting and separating human body tissues to reveal tissue relationships.

Cadaver

A dead human body.

Comparative Anatomy

The study (for example, dissection) of multiple species to learn about form, function, and evolution.

Radiology

A branch of medicine specializing in medical imaging to view inside the body without surgery.

Gross Anatomy

The study of structures that can be seen with the naked eye.

Histology

Microscopic anatomy; the examination of tissues with a microscope.

Histopathology

Microscopic examination of tissues for signs of disease.

Cytology

The study of the structure and function of cells.

Neurophysiology

The physiology of the nervous system.

Endocrinology

The physiology of hormones.

Pathophysiology

The study of mechanisms of disease.

Comparative Physiology

The study of different species to learn about body functions, serving as the basis for understanding human physiology and developing new drugs and medical procedures.

Hippocrates

Greek physician known as the "Father of Medicine" who established a code of ethics (Hippocratic Oath) and urged physicians to seek natural causes of disease.

Aristotle

Greek philosopher who categorized supernatural causes of disease as "theologi" and natural causes as "physiologi", giving rise to the terms physician and physiology.

Metrodora

Greek physician and the first woman to publish a medical textbook.

Claudius Galen

Physician to Roman gladiators who performed animal dissections because cadaver use was banned; his teachings became dogma in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Maimonides

Moses ben Maimon; a Jewish physician who wrote 10 influential medical texts and served as physician to Egyptian sultan Saladin.

Avicenna

Ibn Sina, or "The Galen of Islam"; combined Galen and Aristotle's findings with original discoveries and wrote The Canon of Medicine.

Andreas Vesalius

Anatomist who performed his own dissections and published the first atlas of anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body), in 1543.

William Harvey

Early physiologist who realized blood flows out from the heart and back to it again; published De Motu Cordis (On the Motion of the Heart) in 1628.

Marcello Malpighi

First person to use a compound microscope to study biological material, observing blood cells, capillaries, and capillary blood flow.

Robert Hooke

Inventor of the specimen stage, illuminator, and focus controls for compound microscopes; published Micrographia in 1665 and was first to see and name "cells."

Antony van Leeuwenhoek

Inventor of a simple (single-lens) microscope with 200X magnification who published observations of blood, lake water, sperm, and tooth scraping bacteria.

Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann

Biologists who examined various specimens and concluded that "all organisms were composed of cells," establishing the first tenet of cell theory.

Scientific Method

The process of performing science, including careful observation, logical thinking, and proper analysis of observations and conclusions.

Sample Size

The number of subjects in a study.

Control Group

A group in an experimental design that resembles the treatment group but does not receive the actual treatment.

Psychosomatic Effects

The effects of a subject's state of mind on her or his physiology, which are tested by giving placebos to a control group.

Double-Blind Method

An experimental procedure used to avoid experimenter bias in which neither the subject nor the experimenter knows if the subject is in the control or treatment group.

Peer Review

Critical evaluation of scientific work by other experts in the field prior to funding or publication to ensure honesty, objectivity, and quality.

Scientific Fact

Information that can be independently verified.

Law of Nature

A generalization about the way matter and energy behave, resulting from inductive reasoning and repeated observations.

Theory

An explanatory statement or set of statements derived from facts, laws, and confirmed hypotheses that summarizes knowledge and suggests directions for further study.

Charles Darwin

Influential biologist who presented the first well-supported theory of evolution and authored On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871).

Evolution

A change in the genetic composition of a population of organisms over time.

Natural Selection

The mechanism of evolution that explains how species originate and change through time.

Selection Pressures

Forces (such as predators) that promote the reproductive success of some individuals more than others.

Adaptations

Inherited features of anatomy and physiology that evolved in response to selection pressures and enable an organism to succeed.