ABSTRACT
Accurate knowledge of anatomy was the necessary preliminary to advance in medicine. The two great dates in the early history of medicine and of preventive medicine are 1543 (Vesalius) and 1613 (William Harvey). These great men struck the deathknell of what Harvey described as empty assertions, mere suppositions, and false sophisticated reasonings, which had been the cause of so much error, confusion and delay. Although Harvey in his experiments to prove the circulation of the blood had followed out the experimental method of Hippocrates and Galen, his discovery was withstood by adherents to Galen's dogmas. This chapter also shows the relation of medicine to the physical and biological sciences. It finally sketches the progress of medicine on the clinical and pathological side. Thomas Sydenham in England, as also Boerhaave in the Low Countries, led the battle opened by Paracelsus against medical dogmas. He was the first great epidemiologist, laying stress on the influence of season and climate on infectious diseases.
