Invention Timeline - Marie Francois Xavier Bichat, French Physiologist and Anatomist; First to Reduce the Organs of the Body to Their Elementary Tissues
b. November 11, 1771 and d. July 22, 1802
French physiologist and anatomist. He developed new and important ideas on the anatomy of the tissues and on the distinction between organic and animal functions in his “Treatise on the Membranes” (1798), in “Researches on Life and Death” (1800) and in “General Anatomy Applied to Physiology and Medicine” (1801). He was the first to reduce the organs of the body to their elementary tissues, and explained the chemical, physical and vital properties of each primitive tissue; also the first to recognize the importance of the distinction between organic and animal functions and to make it the basis of a classification.
He who binds
His soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven-
But ’tis a bitter mockery that the fruit
May hang within the reach, and when, with thirst
Wrought to maddening phrenzy, he would taste-
It burns his lips to ashes.
—Willis
300 B. C.—Dissection, previously confined to animals, was first applied to men by Herophilus and Erasistratus.
1537—The dissection of the human body was performed by Vesalius.
1620—Bone-setting was first scientifically practiced.
1718—Jean Louis Petit invented the screw tourniquet for suppressing the flow of blood in surgical operations.
