The Scientific Revolution And The Human Body

Medieval technology stimulated science in the...

15th and 16th centuries

Science came to establish its base in?

technology and commerce (not in written scholarship or church, therefore church lost control of science)

invented by Johannes Gutenberg 1440-1450, arguably most important invention during this time period

Printing press

coffee was introduced into Europe in the

16th and 17th centuries

Copernicus (1473-1543)

• Proposed heliocentric model

• Sun at center, planets (including Earth) orbit it.-Thought orbits were perfect circles.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

• Built on Copernicus

• discovered planetary orbits are elliptical, not perfect circles…later explain by Newton

Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC)

• Proposed heliocentric model → Sun at center, Earth rotates on its axis and orbits Sun.

• Idea was largely ignored at the time in favor of geocentric models.

He created the geocentric (Earth-centered) model, explaining planetary motion with perfect circles and epicycles, later replaced by the heliocentric (Sun-centered) model.

What did Ptolemy propose?

Discovered celestial imperfections and the first to use the telescope

Galieo Galilei (1564-1642)

Sir Issac newton (1642-1727)

Eplained Copernicus’ heliocentric model and Kepler’s elliptical orbits using law of universal gravitation and laws of motion.

leonardo da vinci's main influence in biology and medicine was

his incorporation of anatomy into art

By modern standards, what was the greatest shortcoming of Vesalius' book The
Fabric of the Human Body?

His physiology did not advance beyond the work of Galen.

who produced the first accurate high-quality book of human anatomy ever published?

Vesalius (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543)

What Copernicus was to Ptolemy...

Vesalius was to Galen

Vesalius did many dissections himself personally and was...

skeptical of Galenic anatomy because he noticed discrepancies

How did Vesalius acquire bodies for his dissections in class?

• Vesalius knew a judge who was friendly to science and Vesalius, so this judge would schedule the execution if someone were condemned to death, to fit Vesalius' teaching schedule

• most of his dissections were done on criminals (usually they were hung)

Vesalius' anatomy went beyond Galen, but his ______ did not (Vesalius did not propose circulation of the blood)

physiology

What made Michael Servetus suspect that blood leaving the right side of the heart
returned to the left side of the heart via the lungs?

Even Vesalius could find no pores in the septum between the two sides of the heart

who came up with an idea for pulmonary circulation

Michael Servetus

Servetus was burned at the stake due to what book?

Restoration of Christianity (1553)
The book contains his argument for pulmonary circulation:

There are no pores in the septum separating the right and left ventricles (Vesalius' observation).

The pulmonary artery is huge; the lungs could not possibly consume all that blood (if blood was consumed in the tissues, as Galen believed).

Blood in the pulmonary artery is dark red; blood in the pulmonary vein is bright red

Colombo and Vesalius were friends until Colombo...

accused Vesalius of anatomical errors in Vesalius' book

Who was Realdo Colombo (c. 1510-1559)?

was an anatomist and successor to Vesalius at the University of Padua

Girolamo Fabrici (1527-1619)

He discovered valves inside veins (but didn’t know their full function).

Harvey's 'On the Movement of the Heart and Blood' posed several questions and problems concerning what type of physiology?

Galen

Harvey's work highlighted the...

mechanical aspects of organismal function

Descartes' model of living things as mechanisms was inspired by

the mechanical concepts (pressure, fluid flow) at the heart of Harvey's work

Descartes believed that

• human beings are mechanisms but they alone possess a soul to direct their actions

• animals are mechanisms WITHOUT souls

• the universe itself is a mechanical system

Giovanni Borelli (1608-1679)

Gathered evidence that digestion consists of the mechanical pulverization of food

Vitalism (older view; Aristotle, Galen)

living processes depend upon a vital force that is not explainable
in physical, mechanical or chemical terms

Mechanicism

Living processes are the consequence of fundamental laws
of physics, mechanics and chemistry