Introduction to scientific humanities: An historical perspective

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“Animals are bodies and their vital operations are either movements or actions which require movements. But bodies and movements are the subject of Mathematics. Such a scientific approach is exactly Geometry. Similarly, the operations of animals are carried out using instruments and mechanical means such as scales, levers, pulleys, winding-drums, nails, spirals, etc. Thus it is true that, in building the organs of animals, God exerts geometry. To understand them we need geometry which is the unique and appropriate science to enable one to read and understand the divine book written on animals.

”1 Such was how Giovanni Borelli, an early modern Italian physiologist, biomechanist, physicist and mathematician, introduced his seminal work De Motu Animalium (“On the Movement of Animals”) (1680)—and, in so doing, inaugurated the idea of the body as a material machine. Later on in his work he goes on to discuss, for example, how much force is needed to lift different weights using different levers, and then applies the conclusions to the human arm.

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[...] In fact, on some level, the terms and “movements” hint at the introduction of physics later on in the passage and in the book: we see that the “animals” are actually composed of physical things that are subject to abstract forces, and what else is this but a study in physics? Thus, Borelli, by bringing in sciences like mathematics, geometry and physics into the field of biology and medicine, initiates the practice of using measurements and the like to study the body. [...]

[...] Such a scientific approach is exactly Geometry. Similarly, the operations of animals are carried out using instruments and mechanical means such as scales, levers, pulleys, winding-drums, nails, spirals, etc. Thus it is true that, in building the organs of animals, God exerts geometry. To understand them we need geometry which is the unique and appropriate science to enable one to read and understand the divine book written on animals.” 1 Such was how Giovanni Borelli, an early modern Italian physiologist, biomechanist, physicist and mathematician, introduced his seminal work De Motu Animalium the Movement of Animals”) (1680)—and, in so doing, inaugurated the idea of the body as a material machine. [...]

[...] Introduction to Scientific Humanities: An Historical Perspective 2. The idea that the natural world was a great machine, and that natural phenomena functioned like artificial machinery, was a core principle of early modern and Enlightenment science. Choose an instance of this analogy between natural and artificial machinery to analyze, bringing out the various (not always consistent) ways in which it informed the development of scientific thinking. “Animals are bodies and their vital operations are either movements or actions which require movements. [...]

[...] This is in fact symbolic of the greater change in epistemology that his analogy points at—as Hanafi asserts, Borelli, Descartes‟s insistence on wanting to accommodate facts to philosophical reasoning seemed nothing less than madness, fictions of the mind.”9 Hence, Borelli‟s analogy is representative, in some ways, of the challenge posed to, or even overthrowing of, old regimes, be it the Cartesian way of thinking or the Galenic mode of practicing medicine. This strand of thought was later taken on by Baglivi, amongst other scientists, as well. For instance, in his book entitled De Praxi Media (1696), Baglivi called for Hippocratic principles of sound clinical observation instead of medicophilosophical systems. He also advocated that an iatromathematical physician should forget any theories he has when he appears at the patient‟s bedside. [...]

[...] Then the calf and quadriceps muscles were contracted, thus swelling, to stretch the legs. This should have disturbed the equilibrium, giving advantage to the feet at the expense of the head, by moving from the whole body to the legs the great quantity of blood required to swell the distal muscles. However this did not occur.”8 He undertook similar experiments with other subjects of study, such as fishes and their pectoral fins, and this highlighted the importance Macquet, p Kang, p Ibid Lindberg and Westman, p Macquet, p of the methodology, regardless of the field of discipline. [...]