history of biology

It is clear, therefore, that much of the history of biology predates the time at which humankind began to write and to keep records.

Each is placed in a category, and the classification combines the name of the category with that of the wider group of which the organism is considered to be a member.. Ray publishes classifications of birds (1676), plants (from 1682), fishes (1686), land animals (1693) and insects (1705). The Babylonians knew of the separate sexes of the date palm (. Although Anaximenes, for example, who may have been a student of Anaximander, adhered to the then-popular precept that life originated in a mass of mud, he postulated that the actual creative force was to be found in the air and that it was influenced by the heat of the Sun. Around 600 bce there arose a school of Greek philosophers who believed that every event has a cause and that a particular cause produces a particular effect. One of the first to make a successful attempt is Andrea Cesalpino, whose. The appointment gives him the opportunity to study wounds of all kinds. Although they established the science of biology, the greatest contribution the Greeks made to science was the idea of rational thought. Discover in a free daily email today's famoushistory and birthdays Another source of information concerning the extent of biological knowledge of these early peoples was the discovery of several papyri that pertain to medical subjects; one, believed to date to 1600 bce, contains anatomical descriptions; another (c. 1500 bce) indicates that the importance of the heart had been recognized. Moreover, as a result of the relatively recent development of extremely sophisticated instruments, such as the electron microscope, the ultracentrifuge, and automated DNA sequencing machines, biology has moved from being a largely descriptive science—one concerned with entire cells and organisms—to a discipline that increasingly emphasizes the subcellular and molecular aspects of organisms and attempts to equate structure with function at all levels of biological organization. But his dissections are not adequate to demonstrate this. The mass of an iron atom is much higher than that of a uranium atom. There are moments in the history of all sciences when remarkable progress is made in relatively short periods of time.

Illustrations on certain seals reveal that the Babylonians had learned that the date palm reproduces sexually and that pollen could be taken from the male plant and used to fertilize female plants. Biological practices among Assyrians and Babylonians, Biological knowledge of Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians, Theories about humankind and the origin of life, The Arab world and the European Middle Ages, The discovery of the circulation of blood, The establishment of scientific societies, The use of structure for classifying organisms, The development of comparative biological studies, The study of the reproduction and development of organisms, Important conceptual and technological developments, Intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary work. He is a Greek doctor by the name of Galen. Although a precise dating of those early records is lacking, a Babylonian business contract of the Hammurabi period (c. 1800 bce) mentions the male flower of the date palm as an article of commerce, and descriptions of date harvesting extend back to about 3500 bce. The most original and inquiring mind is severely limited without the proper tools to conduct an investigation; conversely, the most-sophisticated technological equipment cannot of itself yield insights into any scientific process. A document, believed to date to the 6th century bce, described the use of about 960 medicinal plants and included information on topics such as anatomy, physiology, pathology, and obstetrics. Millet, dates, melons, and other fruits and vegetables, as well as cotton, were known to the civilization.

Hippocrates and his predecessors were concerned with the central philosophical question of how the cosmos and its inhabitants were created. Alcmaeon is the first scientist known to have practised dissection in his researches. His aim is not anatomical, for his interest lies in trying to find the whereabouts of human intelligence. A Greek name is coined by a German naturalist in the early 19th century for this study of all physical aspects of natural life - biology, from. That concept, known as causality, had a profound effect on subsequent scientific investigation. For hundreds of years there had been speculation concerning the basic structure of both plants and animals.

Not until optical instruments were sufficiently developed to reveal cells, however, was it possible to formulate a general hypothesis, the cell theory, that satisfactorily explained how plants and animals are organized. As a result of his studies of the development of the embryo, Alcmaeon may be considered the founder of embryology. The earliest known written record of medicine in China, however, is the Huangdi neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine), which dates to the 3rd century bce. Papyri and artifacts found in tombs and pyramids indicate that the Egyptians also possessed considerable medical knowledge. Because those ancient documents, which contained mixtures of fact and superstition, probably summarized then-current knowledge, it may be assumed that some of their contents had been known by earlier generations. With the emergence of the Greek civilization, however, those mystical attitudes began to change.

Belon's travels and observations are recounted in a succession of illustrated volumes published in Paris during the 1550s - on fishes and dolphins (1551), on conifers (1553), on general Middle Eastern curiosities (1555), on birds (1555) and finally 'portraits of birds, animals, snakes, herbs, trees, men and women of Arabia and Egypt, together with a map of Mount Athos and of Mount Sinai for the better understanding of their religion' (1557). Search the whole site Page 2 of 3: Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Anatomists, for example, dissected animals not to gain an understanding of their structure but to study their organs in order to predict the future. But in the course of his researches he makes the first scientific discoveries in the field of anatomy. The descendants of those fishes eventually left water and moved to dry land, where they gave rise to other animals by transmutation (the conversion of one form into another). Initially it focused on the chemical changes of cellular metabolism .

His discoveries, published for the most part in the. God knows best, and so He should - since He created everything. The ruins at Mohenjo-daro have yielded seeds of wheat and barley that were cultivated at that time. For centuries it was also believed that an imbalance in the humours was the cause of disease, a belief that resulted in the common practice of bloodletting to rid the body of excessive humours.

It is well known that they are of a different colour, and there have been many theories as to what each supply of blood does. A book is published in 1628 which provides one of the greatest breakthroughs in the understanding of the human body - indeed perhaps the greatest until the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 20th century.

Similarly, the significance of Gregor Mendel’s studies on the mode of inheritance in the garden pea remained neglected for many years until technological advances made possible the discovery of the chromosomes and the part they play in cell division and heredity. The roots of Biology, the term coined after combining the Greek words of ‘Bios’ meaning life and ‘Logy’ meaning science dates back to the secular traditions of ancient philosophies.

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