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Pick up a magazine or newspaper, turn on the radio or television, or access medical and health information on the Internet and you will find that the human body is definitely in the news. Artificial hearts, dietary supplements, stem cell research, genetic engineering, arthroscopic surgery, and many other intriguing subjects on human biology and health are talked about daily. Our bodies seem to be constantly on our minds! The Handy Anatomy Answer Book is here to help you unravel the complexities and mysteries of how your body works.
Our interest in and understanding of the human body has a long and detailed history going back to the ancient Greeks Aristotle and Galen, who first studied the structure and function of our species. From this starting point, however, the scientific study of the body progressed slowly. It wasn’t until the sixteenth century that the foundations of modern anatomy were laid by Andreas Vesalius; and it wasn’t until the century after that when William Harvey discovered how blood circulates in the body. Finally, in the nineteenth century, anatomy and physiology became distinct scientific disciplines. |
