Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
microscopic anatomy. He published his observations in his De Pulmonis Observations in Bologna, 1661, which was a further contribution to blood movements. Although Harvey had correctly inferred the existence of the capillary circulation he had never seen it, but Malpighi did saw, apparently in the first time in human history, the blood coursing through a network of small tubes on the surface of the lung. Malpighi's book contained also the first account of vesicular structure of the human lung. Anton van Leeuwenhoek (Antonie van Leeuwenhoek) (1632-1723), a Dutch microscopist was another important person in manufacturing microscopes and study the minute structures of organized bodies by their aid. A famous inventor he was though had not been medically or scientifically trained, he invented new systems of magnifying lenses, by using single lenses with very short focus. He made a scries but disconnected discoveries which were, however, accurate descriptions of, beside others, blood capillaries, and red blood corpusclcs. From the point of medical history his most important achievement was by all means the description and illustration of the first micro-organism that had ever been seen by man, in 1683. Robert Hooke (1635-1703) an English experimental physicist, whose scientific achievements would probably have been more striking if they had been less varied, also used a microscope for his observations. Investigating the structure of corkwood he invented a name for its smallest, tiny parts, the cellulae i.e. cells in his Micrographia in 1664. The foundations of medical chemistry (iatro-cheinistry) The character and interests of Paracelsus, (Philippus Aureolus Thcophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus ab Hohenheim) (1493-1541), were so rich in contradictions, that they have been a favourite subject for the historians of science for centuries. He was a typical representative of universal man: physician, alchemist, philosopher and theologian; it seems easier to enumerate the things he did not deal with during his adventurous life. As a physician he was more or less a specialist in surgery, anatomy, pathology, botany and pharmacology, though there is no proof of his formal education and received degrees in medicine. After Girolamo Fracastori (1483-1553) and long before Bernardio Ramazzini (1633-1714) he was the first to study occupational illnesses and wrote a special study on a common disease of miners. He did not employ alchemy for making gold or transmuting base metals into noble ones, but wanted to form it the foundation of pharmacology. His theories were sometimes built upon the base created by ancient authors even if he had publicly rejected them, but after all his ingenious, though often bold way of thinking produced new, heterodox views which he tried to implement into practice. We have presented one of his books, the Tĥeil der Bücher und Schriften (Basel 1589) (No. 3) and a medal in memory of him (No. 2). 39
