History of Medicine and Biology Quiz

Brief History of Biology in Famous Biographies

• The images show diagrams of a developing embryo, highlighting various structures like the bulbus, ventricles, metencephalon, retina, lens, olfactory pit, cerebral hemisphere, vitelline artery, vitelline vein, and allantois.

Learning Outcomes

• Students need to be able to explain the significant contributions of key biologists.
• Students need to distinguish the unique contributions made by different biologists in the development of biology.

Claudius Galen, 130

• Performed dissections on Barbary apes, pigs, sheep, and goats.
• Distinguished seven pairs of cranial nerves, heart valves, and differences in vein and artery structures.
• Observed arteries carry blood, not air—this contradicted previous theories.
• Identified nerves controlling the voice and kidneys and bladder functions.

Galen's Work

• Lectured on anatomy using skeletons in the Temple of Peace in Rome.
• Treated gladiators in Pergamum.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna), 1025

• Stated that tuberculosis was contagious.
• Described diabetes symptoms.
• Provided descriptions of central and peripheral facial paralysis (Bell's palsy).
• Documented several psychiatric disorders like anxiety, depression, Bipolar, PTSD, schizophrenia.
• Published medical works—the Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi al-tibb), and the Book of the Cure (Kitab al-shifa).

Andreas Vesalius, 1543

• Performed dissections on corpses.
• Corrected Galen's inaccuracies regarding the structure of the human breastbone (three segments instead of seven).
• Corrected Galen's inaccuracies regarding the structure of the humerus (longest bone in the body).
• Developed anatomical charts for the blood and nervous systems.
• Published medical work, Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body (De Humani Corporis Fabrica).
• Publicly dissected a female corpse.

Robert Hooke, 1665

• Conceptualized the cell, identifying microscopic honeycomb cavities in cork tissue.
• Illustrated the structure of snowflakes (hexagonal crystalline) and other physical subjects.
• Developed and refined the microscope, enabling detailed observations and drawings.
• Published Micrographia.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, 1675

• Observed and documented bacteria and protozoa.
• Discovered spermatozoa in insects, dogs, and humans.
• Detailed the discovery in letters and shared documentation.

Carolus Linnaeus, 1700

• Developed the system of classifying plant and animal kingdoms, along with mineral kingdoms.
• Created binomial nomenclature for classifying organisms (e.g., Tyrannosaurus rex and Homo sapiens).

Louis Pasteur, 1854

• Demonstrated that microorganisms cause fermentation in wine and beer.
• Proposed the "germ theory," explaining contagious diseases.
• Developed vaccines for anthrax, sepsis complications, and rabies.
• Invented the process of pasteurization.

Alfred Russel Wallace, 1858

• Co-founder of the theory of evolution by natural selection, alongside Charles Darwin.
• Observed patterns of species distribution on Sulawesi (extinct).
• Developed the concept of natural selection—survival of the fittest.
• Published The Malay Archipelago.

Charles Darwin, 1859

• Pioneered the evolutionary theory by natural selection.
• Observed species' survival and adaptation based on their environments.
• Published On the Origin of Species.

Gregor Mendel, 1865

• Discovered fundamental principles of heredity.
• Identified how pea plants transmit traits, developing the foundation of mathematical genetics, the laws of heredity, also known as Mendel's law of inheritance.

James Watson & Francis Crick, 1953

• Discovered the double helix structure of DNA.