History Of Anatomy

Biology II
Topic 1. Human body anatomy
1.1 History of Anatomy

Hippocrates was a physician of the ancient Greece who lived in the 4th century B.C. He is considered as a very distinguished figurein the history of Medicine, so he is known as "the father of Medicine". He founded a school where he taught Anatomy and revolutionized the Medicine transforming it into an authentic profession.Aristotle used for the first time the term Anatomy, derived from the Greek anatemnein that means ”cutting up”.




The founder of the human Anatomy was Eustachio, who studied parts of the human bodysuch as bones, muscles, nerves, veins and the inner ear, whose inner channel receives the name of Eustachian tube.


Leonardo Da Vinci made sketches and drawings with accurate details of thehuman body, which led to the development of artistic Anatomy.

In the 16th century, Andreas Vesalius did big contributions to the development of Anatomy through his work De Humani Corporis Fabrica, adescriptive book based on the observation of the human body, which granted him the title of founder of the modern Anatomy.

In the 17th century, William Harvey, English physician, discovered anddescribed the human circulatory system mechanism and studied the characteristics of the blood and the heart, as well as their function.


1.2 General definitions and concepts

Anatomy is a descriptivescience, whose object of study is the form, location and relation of the organs that form the living beings.

Despite Anatomy is a descriptive science, to understand the way a human being isstructured, Anatomy needs auxiliary sciences as the physiology (that deals with the study of body function) to understand how it works.

Other auxiliary sciences for Anatomy are the histology, whichstudies the tissues; and the cytology and cell biology that study the cells.


1.3 Branches and divisions of Anatomy

Systematic or descriptive anatomy: it is the study of the human body dividing it...