On This Day in History March 29, 1561: Santorio Santorio (March 29, 1561 - February 22, 1636), also called Sanctorio Sanctorio, Santorio Santorii, and Sanctorius of Padua among other names was born in the town of Capodistria aka Justinopolis now known as Koper in southwestern Slovenia, which was then part of the Republic of Venice.
So who was Santorio and what made him so important. According to the listing Santorio Santorio: Italian physician from the Encyclopaedia Britannica online:
Santorio Santorio, Latin Sanctorius or Santorius (born March 29, 1561, Capodistria [now Koper, Slvn.]—died Feb. 22, 1636, Venice [Italy]), Italian physician who was the first to employ instruments of precision in the practice of medicine and whose studies of basal metabolism introduced quantitative experimental procedure into medical research.
Santorio was the first to apply a numerical scale to his thermoscope which would later become a thermometer. Other devices that were first utilized by Santorio was a wind gauge, a water current meter, the pulsilogium (a device used to measure the pulse rate).
Santorio was also famous for his studies in the field of the human metabolism by monitoring the effect of the metabolism on his own body. After measuring all aspects of what he ingested and excreted, Santorio published his La Medicina Statica in 1614.
For Further Reading:
THE HISTORY OF THE QUANTITATIVE APPROACH IN MEDICINE by E. Ashworth Underwood from the British Medical Bulletin Volume 7 Issue 4, Pp. 265-274.
Santorio Santorio from the Galileo Project of Rice University
Santorio Santorio (1561-1636) from the Vaulted Treasures website of the University of Virginia
“Santorio Santorio and the Thermometer” by Robert Mulcahy Mini-assessment from the Achieve the Core website
