Carl K. answered • 09/02/19
Assistant Professor of Family Medicine
Ever since I began the study of medicine I have been fascinated by the levels of organization present within the human body. The more magnification used, the more structure and organization is apparent. The human body is organized right down to the molecular level (DNA, protein).
Anatomy is a major first year course in every medical school throughout the world. DaVinci was one of the first to dissect the body of deceased humans and draw accurately what he observed. Dissection of the body was against church law and national law in most of the world until recently, making an accurate understanding of the human body and human physiology unobtainable to the ancients. For instance, it was long held that the blood ebbed and flowed, rather than circulated. The ancient Egyptians were skilled a mummification, but did not preserve the human brain, likely because they had no idea of its importance.
The invention of the light microscope, and later the electron microscope allowed more modern physicians and scientists to observe the finer structure in the human body, and better understand it. Physicians and scientists continue to make major discoveries in medical genetics, metabolism, and the understanding of disease processes by studying the structure and make up of the human body.
As an example, the compound light microscope was developed in the early 17th century by Gallileo and vonLeeuwenhoek, but 250 years later, more soldiers died of infection during the civil war than from bullets, even though scientists could clearly observe bacteria by then. It was nearly 100 more years until the development of penicillin and other antibiotics that began to make profound improvements in the treatment of infection.