Cover
Contents
Preface
1. Ancient Greece and Rome
The Facts
The Birth of Biology
Overview of Ancient Greek and Roman Biological Sciences
Hippocratic Medicine
Aristotle
Galen's Physiology
Pliny the Elder's Natural History
The Atomists
Historical Overview
The Role of Experimentation in Greek Science and Particularly in Life Sciences
Anaximander and the Atomists: The Futile Search for Pioneers
Contemporary Relevance
Mechanistic and Molecular Explanations
The Role of Analogy
The Beginnings of the Chain of Being
Pliny's Legacy

Ever-Present Finalism
2. The Middle Ages and Arab-Muslim Science
The Facts
The Arab-Muslim World
The Middle Ages in the West
Historical Overview
Contemporary Relevance
Scientific Progress Is Not a Given
Less Obvious Contributions to the Development of Science
3. The Renaissance (Sixteenth Century)
The Facts
Progress in Anatomy and Depictions of the Human Body
Books on Natural History
Alchemy in Medicine: From Paracelsus to Van Helmont
Historical Overview
A Fascination with Dissections
The Role of Alchemy
Changes in the Social Structure of Science

Contemporary Relevance
Finding the Right Distance from the Past
New Techniques Bring New Sources of Error
Aging as a Form of Poisoning
4. The Age of Classicism (Seventeenth Century)
The Facts
The Discovery of Circulation
The Development of Quantitative Experiments
The Invention of the Microscope and Its Consequences
Historical Overview
The Not-So-Obvious Case of Circulation
The Mechanistic Model of Life and Its Limitations
The Incomprehensible Theory of Preformationism
Invisible and Indirect Changes
Contemporary Relevance
The Machines in Front of Us

Vestiges of Preformation Theory
Accepting the Plurality of Approaches in Biology
Translational Medicine Is Not New
5. The Enlightenment (Eighteenth Century)
The Facts
Vitalism
Classification: Linnaeus versus Buffon
Reproductive Physiology
The Role of Breathing Becomes Clear
Historical Overview
Variations on Vitalism
Classification versus Evolution
Classifying Humans
Priestley and Lavoisier: Only the First Step
Contemporary Relevance
A Natural Classification?
Comparing Plants and Animals
Maupertuis, the Father of Self-Organization?

6. The Nineteenth Century (Part I): Embryology, Cell Biology, Microbiology, and Physiology
The Facts
Embryology Becomes an Established Discipline
The Emergence of Cell Theory
The Rise of Germ Theory
Physiology's Golden Age
Historical Overview
The Roots of Cell Theory
Scholars Trapped by Their Own Philosophical Ideas?
The Tension between Chemical Explanations and Structural Models
Was Embryology Holding Out for Evolution?
1859: A Remarkable Year
Contemporary Relevance
The Disappearance of Traditional Disciplines in Biology