Anatomy is a science older than science itself. The first anatomists where the first humans, categorizing and recognizing the other organisms in their environment using skills of gross anatomy. Vision is fundamental to humans, and is the basis of our understanding of the world. As we advanced in thought and organization, early thinkers began to try to classify organisms. Without any other information, anatomy was often the only evidence available to bind organisms into groups. Aristotle was among the first to attempt serious organization of living things and used many attributes of their anatomy to group them together. His two main groups were plants and animals, two groups we can still easily distinguish today based on their gross anatomies.
Early medicine advanced quickly once the moratorium on dissection was lifted. Often frowned upon in early society, early anatomists like Leonardo Da Vinci often received scrutiny from the public or the church for their scientific inquiry. However, an understanding of the human body arose from these early pioneers, upon which is built the medical knowledge of today. Many of the first works of human and animal anatomy were published during the Renaissance. Many authors showed an advanced, if slightly lacking or skewed view of anatomy as we know it today. But, without any way to understand the workings of the body further, gross anatomy was stranded by itself.
Fast forward several hundred years and the “Father of Taxonomy” Carl Linnaeus was still mainly focused on gross anatomy as a starting point for classification. Darwin’s idea of evolution and common ancestors became accepted at the end of the 1800’s. Still, there were not many methods to evaluate the relationships between animals further. With the advent of better imaging technology, the 1900’s brought the emergence of microscopic anatomy, and really started to change biology. Once it was understood that DNA was the principle mode through which organisms inherited traits, revolutions in many disciplines occurred. Medicine saw a rapid increase in understanding, thanks to the discovery that bacteria and other microbes can cause disease. The inner workings of the cell were being pieced together, and the functions of the many different organelles understood. Many aspects of evolutionary biology were rediscovered or overturned as microscopic anatomy and DNA revealed different relationships than were once assumed. This revolution continues today, as new developments in microscopic anatomy and physiology continually reshape our understanding of organisms.
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