Biologia

The term biology is derived from the Greek word βίος, bios, "life" and the suffix -λογία, -logia, "study of." [4] The Latin form of the term first appeared in 1736 when Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) usedbiologi in his Bibliotheca botanica. It was used again in 1766 in a work entitled Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae: tomus III, continens geologian, biologian, phytologian generalis, by MichaelChristoph Hanov, a disciple of Christian Wolff. The first German use, Biologie, was used in a 1771 translation of Linnaeus' work. In 1797, Theodor Georg Roose used the term in a book, Grundzüge derLehre van der Lebenskraft, in the preface. Karl Friedrich Burdach used the term in 1800 in a more restricted sense of the study of human beings from a morphological, physiological and psychologicalperspective (Propädeutik zum Studien der gesammten Heilkunst). The term came into its modern usage with the six-volume treatise Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur (1802–22) by Gottfried ReinholdTreviranus, who announced: [5]

The objects of our research will be the different forms and manifestations of life, the conditions and laws under which these phenomena occur, and the causes throughwhich they have been effected. The science that concerns itself with these objects we will indicate by the name biology [Biologie] or the doctrine of life [Lebenslehre]. (1:4)

Although biology inits modern form is a relatively recent development, sciences related to and included within it have been studied since ancient times. Natural philosophy was studied as early as the ancientcivilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, and China. However, the origins of modern biology and its approach to the study of nature are most often traced back to ancient Greece. [6] While theformal study of medicine dates back to Hippocrates (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC), it was Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) who contributed most extensively to the development of biology. Especially important...