Aristotle and Anatomy

Saturday, April 5, 2008

posted by Geetesh at 3:17 PM IST

This is part of a continuous series of posts in which I will explore the fascinating relation between medicine and art. Most of these posts will contain plenty of links to resources with more info, and as far as possible, I'll try to include visual content as well.

We'll start by exploring a little known facet of Aristotle's personality -- it's not a very well known fact that Aristotle was a anatomist -- his philosophical attributes often overshadow his other capabilities.

Aristotle has been credited as being the first anatomist although none of his anatomical drawings and biological work has survived. He drew the distinction between nerves and tendons -- and explored the relations between organs quite accurately.