The Scientific Revolution
Overview
The Scientific Revolution
Beginning in the 16th century, advances in scientific knowledge transformed how Europeans viewed the world and their place in it. These advances set the stege for the development of new technologies in Europe and around the world through the 21st century,
Learning Objectives
- Review the ideas of the Scientific Revolution
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Empiricism: a theory stating that knowledge comes only, or primarily, from sensory experience, which emphasizes evidence, especially the kind of evidence gathered through experimentation and by use of the scientific method
Galileo: an Italian thinker (1564 – 1642) and key figure in the scientific revolution who improved the telescope, made astronomical observations, and put forward the basic principle of relativity in physics
Baconian method: the investigative method developed by Sir Francis Bacon (It was put forward in Bacon’s book Novum Organum (1620), (or New Method), and was supposed to replace the methods put forward in Aristotle’s Organon. This method was influential upon the development of the scientific method in modern science, but also more generally in the early modern rejection of medieval Aristotelianism.)
scientific method: a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge, through the application of empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning (It has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.)
Copernican Revolution: the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the sun at the center of the solar system (Beginning with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, contributions to the “revolution” continued, until finally ending with Isaac Newton’s work over a century later.)
Copernicus: a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer (1473 – 1543), who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the sun, rather than the earth, at the center
Copernican heliocentrism: the name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543; the theory that positions the sun near the center of the universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths, modified by epicycles and at uniform speeds (It departed from the Ptolemaic system that prevailed in western culture for centuries, placing Earth at the center of the universe.)
Humorism: a system of medicine detailing the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by the Indian Ayurveda system of medicine, and Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers (It posits that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person—known as humors or humours—directly influences their temperament and health.)
Andreas Vesalius: a Belgian anatomist (1514 – 1564), physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body)
Galen: a prominent Greek physician (129 CE – c. 216 CE), surgeon, and philosopher in the Roman Empire (Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, he influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.)
Ambroise Paré: a French surgeon (1510 – 1590) who is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology, and a pioneer in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds
William Harvey: an English physician (1578 – 1657), who was the first to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the heart
chemical revolution: the 18th-century reformulation of chemistry that culminated in the law of conservation of mass and the oxygen theory of combustion (During the 19th and 20th century, this transformation was credited to the work of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (the “father of modern chemistry”). However, recent research notes that gradual changes in chemical theory and practice emerged over two centuries.)
scientific revolution: the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature (It began in Europe towards the end of the Renaissance period, and continued through the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment.)
The Scientific Revolution
The Scientific Revolution is rooted in the historical developments of the Early Modern period, the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Age of Discovery. One of the results of the Reformation was the decline of Medieval Scholasticism as an intellectual movement. Medieval Scholastic philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas (13th century) maintained that the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (4th century BCE) were in harmony with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently, Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastic philosophers attempted to demonstrate through deductive reason that Aristotle's notions regarding the natural world were in accordance with divine revelation in the Holy Bible. However, during the Reformation, reformers such as Martin Luther cared little for the authority of the pagan philosopher, Aristotle, and focused instead on living an authentic Christian life based on the Word of God as revealed in the Bible. In the wake of the Reformation in the 17th and 18th centuries, religious movements all emphasized a strong commitment to Christ through living life in accordance with Christ's teachings; these movements included both Protestants (Quakers - England, Pietists - Germany, Methodists - England) and Roman Catholics (Quietists - Spain, Italy, Jansenists - France). In these centuries, this emphasis on Christian morality and theology in the churches enabled scientists to examine the natural world more freely without the preconceptions imposed by Scholastic philosophy. The French mathematician and philosopher, Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) even proposed a sharp distinction between the spiritual and material worlds. According to Descartes, who was a Roman Catholic, one followed the doctrines of the Church by faith as they pertained to spiritual matters, whereas one applied reason to understand the material world that God had created. Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), the French mathematician and scientist who formulated Pascal's principle of pressure regarding fluid mechanics, followed this Descartian formula in his own career, as he was a devout Roman Catholic and Jansenist as well as a noted scientist.
The Reformation not only freed scientists from the tenets of Scholastic philosophy, but it also was a factor in the Scientific Revolution due to its emphasis on education and literacy. Protestant reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, as well as the Roman Catholic Jesuits saw education as a way to instill the love of Christ among the youth. As a result of the Reformation new schools and colleges sprung up across Europe. Protestant regions, such as Scotland and Prussia, especially encouraged literacy even among the peasantry because they felt the study of Holy Scripture was required for all Christians. When the English Calvinists established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America in 1630, they quickly founded a public primary school in Boston, the Boston Latin School, in 1635 and a college and seminary at Harvard in 1636. The expansion of schools and literacy in this period did promote the reading of the Bible, but it also facilitated the spread of new ideas that advanced scientific knowledge.
The Renaissance was also a spark for the Scientific Revolution. Due to the efforts of the Renaissance Humanists, the works of ancient Greek and Roman Classical authors were assembled, published, and circulated. Moreover, Humanists developed the curriculum for the new schools, which were popping up, and they placed a heavy emphasis on the study of Classical authors in their original Greek and Latin. Students receiving this education observed that ancient Greek and Roman mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato (4th century BCE) as well as the Stoics and Epicureans, all had conflicting theories regarding the natural world while sharing the conviction that human reason was fully capable of unlocking the mysteries of the Universe. This spirit of inquiry and intellectual debate among these Classical authors thereby encouraged these students to seek to find their own answers to their own questions about the natural world.
The Age of Discovery also stimulated intellectual curiosity and inquiry. From the time of Columbus's first voyage to the New World in 1492 through the period of exploration by Englishman James Cook among the islands of the Pacific in the mid-18th century, Europeans learned about exotic lands with strange plants, animals, and peoples. These discoveries stimulated much discussion among the educated in Europe. For example, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) was fascinated by tales concerning the strange customs among the natives of the New World. This diversity of customs and morals and in the world helped Montaigne to embrace skepticism and to questions about whether or not human beings were capable of fully grasping the truth.
The scientific revolution witnessed the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature. The scientific revolution began in Europe toward the end of the Renaissance period and continued through the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment. While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus ‘s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution.
The scientific revolution was built upon the foundation of ancient Greek learning and science in the Middle Ages, as it had been elaborated and further developed by Roman/Byzantine science and medieval Islamic science. The Aristotelian tradition was still an important intellectual framework in the 17th century, although by that time natural philosophers had moved away from much of it. Key scientific ideas dating back to classical antiquity had changed drastically over the years, and in many cases had been discredited. The ideas that remained were transformed fundamentally during the scientific revolution; for example, Aristotle’s cosmology, which placed the Earth at the center of a spherical hierarchic cosmos and the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion were both replaced.
The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons:
- Seventeenth century scientists and philosophers were able to collaborate with members of the mathematical and astronomical communities to effect advances in all fields.
- Scientists realized the inadequacy of medieval experimental methods for their work and so felt the need to devise new methods (some of which we use today).
- Academics had access to a legacy of European, Greek, and Middle Eastern scientific philosophy that they could use as a starting point (either by disproving or building on the theorems).
- Institutions (for example, the British Royal Society) helped validate science as a field by providing an outlet for the publication of scientists’ work.
New Methods
Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. The philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature (to abandon assumption and to attempt to simply observe with an open mind) was in strict contrast with the earlier Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced further understanding. In practice, many scientists and philosophers believed that a healthy mix of both was needed—the willingness to both question assumptions, and to interpret observations assumed to have some degree of validity.
During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in respect to nature and the value of evidence—experimental or observed led to a scientific methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role. The term British empiricism came into use to describe philosophical differences perceived between two of its founders—Francis Bacon—an empiricist—and René Descartes–a rationalist. Bacon’s works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, which is often called the Baconian Method or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. Correspondingly, Descartes distinguished between the knowledge that could be attained by reason alone (rationalist approach), as in mathematics, and the knowledge that required experience of the world, as in physics.
Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents of empiricism, and they developed a sophisticated empirical tradition as the basis of human knowledge. The recognized founder of the approach was John Locke, who proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) that the only true knowledge that could be accessible to the human mind was that which was based on experience.
New Ideas
Many new ideas contributed to what is called the scientific revolution. Some of them were revolutions in their own fields. These include:
- The heliocentric model that involved the radical displacement of the earth to an orbit around the sun (as opposed to being seen as the center of the universe). Copernicus’s 1543 work on the heliocentric model of the solar system tried to demonstrate that the sun was the center of the universe. The discoveries of Johannes Kepler and Galileo gave the theory credibility and the work culminated in Isaac Newton’s Principia, which formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.
- Studying human anatomy based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather than the animal dissections, as practiced for centuries.
- Discovering and studying magnetism and electricity, and thus, electric properties of various materials.
- Modernization of disciplines (making them more as what they are today), including dentistry, physiology, chemistry, and optics.
- Invention of tools that deepened the understating of sciences, including mechanical calculator, steam digester (the forerunner of the steam engine), refracting and reflecting telescopes, vacuum pump, and mercury barometer.
Mathematization
To the extent that medieval natural philosophers used mathematical problems, they limited social studies to theoretical analyses of local speed and other aspects of life. The actual measurement of a physical quantity, and the comparison of that measurement to a value computed on the basis of theory, was largely limited to the mathematical disciplines of astronomy and optics in Europe. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European scientists began increasingly applying quantitative measurements to the measurement of physical phenomena on Earth.
The Copernican Revolution
While the dates of the scientific revolution are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution. The book proposed a heliocentric system contrary to the widely accepted geocentric system of that time. Tycho Brahe accepted Copernicus’s model but reasserted geocentricity. However, Tycho challenged the Aristotelian model when he observed a comet that went through the region of the planets. This region was said to only have uniform circular motion on solid spheres, which meant that it would be impossible for a comet to enter into the area. Johannes Kepler followed Tycho and developed the three laws of planetary motion. Kepler would not have been able to produce his laws without the observations of Tycho, because they allowed Kepler to prove that planets traveled in ellipses, and that the sun does not sit directly in the center of an orbit, but at a focus. Galileo Galilei came after Kepler and developed his own telescope with enough magnification to allow him to study Venus and discover that it has phases like a moon. The discovery of the phases of Venus was one of the more influential reasons for the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism. Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica concluded the Copernican Revolution. The development of his laws of planetary motion and universal gravitation explained the presumed motion related to the heavens by asserting a gravitational force of attraction between two objects.
Other Advancements in Physics and Mathematics
Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion, a major development in human thought. Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics.
Newton’s Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth, and of celestial bodies, could be described by the same principles. His prediction that Earth should be shaped as an oblate spheroid was later vindicated by other scientists. His laws of motion were to be the solid foundation of mechanics; his law of universal gravitation combined terrestrial and celestial mechanics into one great system that seemed to be able to describe the whole world in mathematical formulae. Newton also developed the theory of gravitation. After exchanges with Robert Hooke—English natural philosopher, architect, and polymath, he worked out proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits was based on mathematical formulas.
Dr. William Gilbert, in De Magnete, invented the New Latin word electricus from ἤλεκτρον (elektron), the Greek word for “amber.” Gilbert undertook a number of careful electrical experiments, in the course of which he discovered that many substances were capable of manifesting electrical properties. He also discovered that a heated body lost its electricity, and that moisture prevented the electrification of all bodies, due to the now well-known fact that moisture impaired the insulation of such bodies. He also noticed that electrified substances attracted all other substances indiscriminately, whereas a magnet only attracted iron. The many discoveries of this nature earned for Gilbert the title of “founder of the electrical science.”
Robert Boyle also worked frequently at the new science of electricity and added several substances to Gilbert’s list of electrics. In 1675, he stated that electric attraction and repulsion can act across a vacuum. One of his important discoveries was that electrified bodies in a vacuum would attract light substances, indicating that the electrical effect did not depend upon the air as a medium. The first usage of the word electricity is ascribed to Thomas Browne in his 1646 work. In 1729, Stephen Gray demonstrated that electricity could be “transmitted” through metal filaments.
The 18th century witnessed the early modern reformulation of chemistry that culminated in the law of conservation of mass and the oxygen theory of combustion. This period was eventually called the chemical revolution. According to an earlier theory, a substance called phlogiston was released from inflammable materials through burning. The resulting product was termed calx, which was considered a dephlogisticated substance in its true form. The first strong evidence against phlogiston theory came from Joseph Black, Joseph Priestley, and Henry Cavendish, who all identified different gases that composed air. However, it was not until Antoine Lavoisier discovered in 1772 that sulphur and phosphorus grew heavier when burned that the phlogiston theory began to unravel. Lavoisier subsequently discovered and named oxygen, as well as described its roles in animal respiration and the calcination of metals exposed to air (1774 – 1778). In 1783, he found that water was a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. Transition to and acceptance of Lavoisier’s findings varied in pace across Europe. Eventually, however, the oxygen-based theory of combustion drowned out the phlogiston theory and, in the process, created the basis of modern chemistry.
Astronomy
While astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, its development during the period of the scientific revolution entirely transformed the views of society about nature. The publication of the seminal work in the field of astronomy published in 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), is often seen as marking the beginning of the time when scientific disciplines, including astronomy, began to apply modern empirical research methods, which gradually transformed into the modern sciences as we know them today.
The Copernican Heliocentrism
Copernican heliocentrism is the name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. It positioned the sun near the center of the universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths, modified by epicycles and at uniform speeds. The Copernican model departed from the Ptolemaic system that prevailed in western culture for centuries, placing Earth at the center of the universe. Copernicus’s De revolutionibus marks the beginning of the shift away from a geocentric (and anthropocentric) universe with Earth at its center. Copernicus held that Earth is another planet revolving around the fixed sun once a year and turning on its axis once a day. But while he put the sun at the center of the celestial spheres, he did not put it at the exact center of the universe, but near it. His system used only uniform circular motions, correcting what was seen by many as the chief inelegance in Ptolemy’s system.
The Copernican Revolution
From 1543 until about 1700, few astronomers were convinced by the Copernican system. Forty-five years after the publication of De Revolutionibus, the astronomer Tycho Brahe went so far as to construct a cosmology precisely equivalent to that of Copernicus, but with Earth held fixed in the center of the celestial sphere instead of the sun. Following Copernicus and Tycho, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, both working in the first decades of the 17th century, influentially defended, expanded, and modified the heliocentric theory.
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German scientist who initially worked as Tycho’s assistant. In 1596, he published his first book, the Mysterium cosmographicum, which was the first to openly endorse Copernican cosmology by an astronomer since the 1540s. The book described his model that used Pythagorean mathematics and the five Platonic solids to explain the number of planets, their proportions, and their order. In 1600, Kepler set to work on the orbit of Mars, the second most eccentric of the six planets known at that time. This work was the basis of his next book, the Astronomia nova (1609). The book argued heliocentrism and ellipses for planetary orbits, instead of circles modified by epicycles. It contains the first two of his eponymous three laws of planetary motion (in 1619, the third law was published). The laws state the following:
- All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one focus.
- A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
- The time required for a planet to orbit the sun, called its period, is proportional to long axis of the ellipse raised to the 3/2 power. The constant of proportionality is the same for all the planets.
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist who is sometimes referred to as the “father of modern observational astronomy.” Based on the designs of Hans Lippershey, he designed his own telescope, which he had improved to 30x magnification. Using this new instrument, Galileo made a number of astronomical observations, which he published in the Sidereus Nuncius in 1610. In this book, he described the surface of the moon as rough, uneven, and imperfect. His observations challenged Aristotle’s claim that the moon was a perfect sphere, and the larger idea that the heavens were perfect and unchanging, a view that Tycho had previously challenged with his own observations. While observing Jupiter over the course of several days, Galileo noticed four stars close to Jupiter whose positions were changing in a way that would be impossible if they were fixed stars. After much observation, he concluded these four stars were orbiting the planet Jupiter and were in fact moons, not stars. This was a radical discovery because, according to Aristotelian cosmology, all heavenly bodies revolve around Earth, and a planet with moons obviously contradicted that popular belief. While contradicting Aristotelian belief, it supported Copernican cosmology, which stated that Earth is a planet like all others.
In 1610, Galileo also observed that Venus had a full set of phases, similar to the phases of the moon, that we can observe from Earth. This was explainable by the Copernican system, which said that all phases of Venus would be visible due to the nature of its orbit around the sun, unlike the Ptolemaic system, which stated only some of Venus’s phases would be visible. Due to Galileo’s observations of Venus, Ptolemy’s system became highly suspect and the majority of leading astronomers subsequently converted to various heliocentric models, making his discovery one of the most influential in the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism.
Uniting Astronomy and Physics: Isaac Newton
Although the motions of celestial bodies had been qualitatively explained in physical terms since Aristotle introduced celestial movers in his Metaphysics and a fifth element in his On the Heavens, Johannes Kepler was the first to attempt to derive mathematical predictions of celestial motions from assumed physical causes. This led to the discovery of the three laws of planetary motion that carry his name.
Isaac Newton developed further ties between physics and astronomy through his law of universal gravitation. Realizing that the same force that attracted objects to the surface of Earth held the moon in orbit around the Earth, Newton was able to explain, in one theoretical framework, all known gravitational phenomena. Newton’s Principia (1687) formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. His laws of motion were to be the solid foundation of mechanics; his law of universal gravitation combined terrestrial and celestial mechanics into one great system that seemed to be able to describe the whole world in mathematical formulae. Newton employed the new mathematical discipline of Calculus to construct this system. Both Newton and his German contemporary, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646 – 1716), both claimed to have invented this new discipline.
18th century achievements in Astronomy
Building on the body of work forwarded by Copernicus, Kepler and Newton, 18th-century astronomers refined telescopes, produced star catalogs, and worked towards explaining the motions of heavenly bodies and the consequences of universal gravitation. In 1705, astronomer Edward Halley correctly linked historical descriptions of particularly bright comets to the reappearance of just one (later named Halley’s Comet), based on his computation of the orbits of comets. James Bradley realized that the unexplained motion of stars he had early observed with Samuel Molyneux was caused by the aberration of light. He also came fairly close to the estimation of the speed of light. Observations of Venus in the 18th century became an important step in describing atmospheres, including the work of Mikhail Lomonosov, Johann Hieronymus Schröter, and Alexis Claude de Clairaut. On the theoretical side of astronomy, the English natural philosopher John Michell first proposed the existence of dark stars in 1783.
Much astronomical work of the period becomes shadowed by one of the most dramatic scientific discoveries of the 18th century. On March 13, 1781, amateur astronomer William Herschel spotted a new planet with his powerful reflecting telescope. Initially identified as a comet, the celestial body later came to be accepted as a planet. Soon after, the planet was named Georgium Sidus by Herschel and was called Herschelium in France. The name Uranus, as proposed by Johann Bode, came into widespread usage after Herschel’s death.
The Medical Renaissance
The Renaissance brought an intense focus on varied scholarship to Christian Europe. A major effort to translate the Arabic and Greek scientific works into Latin emerged, and Europeans gradually became experts not only in the ancient writings of the Romans and Greeks, but also in the contemporary writings of Islamic scientists. During the later centuries of the Renaissance—which overlapped with the scientific revolution, experimental investigation, particularly in the field of dissection and body examination, advanced the knowledge of human anatomy. Other developments of the period also contributed to the modernization of medical research, including printed books that allowed for a wider distribution of medical ideas and anatomical diagrams, more open attitudes of Renaissance humanism, and the Church’s diminishing impact on the teachings of the medical profession and universities. In addition, the invention and popularization of microscope in the 17th century greatly advanced medical research.
Human Anatomy
The writings of ancient Greek physician Galen had dominated European thinking in medicine. Galen’s understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the then-current theory of humorism (also known as the four humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm); this theory was advanced by ancient Greek physicians, such as Hippocrates. Galen’ theories dominated and influenced western medical science for more than 1,300 years. His anatomical reports, based mainly on dissection of monkeys and pigs, remained uncontested until 1543, when printed descriptions and illustrations of human dissections were published in the seminal work De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius. Vesalius first demonstrated the mistakes in the Galenic model, and his anatomical teachings were based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather than the animal dissections that Galen had used as a guide. Vesalius’s work emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the “anatomical” view of the body: seeing human internal functioning as an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs arranged in three-dimensional space. This was in stark contrast to many of the anatomical models used previously.
Further groundbreaking work was carried out by William Harvey, who published De Motu Cordis in 1628. Harvey made a detailed analysis of the overall structure of the heart, showing how pulsation of the arteries depends upon the contraction of the left ventricle, while the contraction of the right ventricle propels its charge of blood into the pulmonary artery. He noticed that the two ventricles move together almost simultaneously and not independently like had been thought previously by his predecessors. Harvey also estimated the capacity of the heart, how much blood is expelled through each pump of the heart, and the number of times the heart beats in a half an hour. From these estimations, he went on to prove how the blood circulated in a circle.
Other Medical Advances
Various other advances in medical understanding and practice were made. French surgeon Ambrose Pare(c. 1510 – 1590) is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology, as well as a pioneer in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds. He was also an anatomist and invented several surgical instruments and was part of the Parisian Barber Surgeon guild. Paré was also an important figure in the progress of obstetrics in the middle of the 16th century.
Herman Boerhaave (1668 – 1738)—a Dutch botanist, chemist, Christian humanist and physician of European fame—is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. He is sometimes referred to as “the father of physiology,” along with the Venetian physician Santorio Santorio (1561 – 1636), who introduced the quantitative approach into medicine, as well as with his pupil Albrecht von Haller (1708 – 1777). He is best known for demonstrating the relation of symptoms to lesions and, in addition, he was the first to isolate the chemical urea from urine. He was the first physician that put thermometer measurements to clinical practice. Bacteria and protists were first observed with a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, initiating the scientific field of microbiology. French physician Pierre Fauchard started dentistry science as we know it today, and he has been named “the father of modern dentistry.” He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste (“The Surgeon Dentist”), published in 1728. The book described basic oral anatomy and function, signs and symptoms of oral pathology, operative methods for removing decay and restoring teeth, periodontal disease (pyorrhea), orthodontics, replacement of missing teeth, and tooth transplantation.
Arrtibutions
Title Image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isaac_Newton_woodcut,_frontispiece_to_Mach.jpg
woodcut portrait of Isaac Newton by an unknown artist after a portrait by Kneller, ca. 1689, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Adapted from:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-scientific-revolution/