The Origins of Biomedical Science

chapter 1.2

Influence of Hippocrates (460 - 375 BCE)

established the Hippocratic Oath

urged physicians to seek natural causes for disease

Influence of Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE)

Believed that diseases could have either supernatural or natural causes.

Argued that complex structures are built from a smaller variety of simple components

Influence of Metrodora (c. 200 BCE)

perhaps the first woman to publish a medical textbook (“On the Diseases and Cures of Women”)

Influence of Claudius Galen (129 - c. 200)

was a physician to the Roman gladiators

he warned of incorrect information in his own books as he had never been able to dissect a cadaver

Maimonides (1135 - 1204)

wrote 10 influential medical books and numerous treatises on specific diseases

Avicenna (930 - 1037)

studied Galen and Aristotle, combined their findings with original discoveries, and questioned authority when the evidence demanded it.

Wrote “The Canon of Medicine”

Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564)

Taught anatomy in Italy

In his lifetime, cadaver dissection became an option to allow for autopsies in cases of suspicious death

He was the first to publish accurate illustrations for teaching anatomy

Performed dissections for medical students

Published “De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body)”

William Harvey (1578 - 1657)

Remembered for his studies of blood circulation

Published “De Motu Cordis (On the Motion of the Heart)”

He and Michael Servetus were the first Western scientists to realise that blood must circulate continuously around the body

Galileo (1564 - 1642)

patented the compound microscope as a by-product of his work with telescopes

Marcello Malpighi (1628 - 1694)

was the first to study cells with a compound microscope

was among the first to observe blood cells and capillaries as well as capillary blood flow.

Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703)

improved the optics and invented several of the helpful features found in microscopes today (e.g. a stage to hold the specimen, an illuminator, and coarse and fine focus controls)

He was the first to be able to see and name cells

He published the first comprehensive book of microscopy, “Micrographia”

In the nineteenth century, German inventors greatly improved the compound microscope, adding the condenser and developing superior optics.

Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723)

invented a simple (single-lens) microscope

Matthias Scheiden (1804 - 1881) and Theodor Schwann (1810 - 1882)

Concluded that all organisms were composed of cells - this idea took another century to be generally accepted

became the first tent of the cell theory