Quick Facts
Aries
Biography
Santorio Santorio (29 March 1561 – 22 February 1636), also called Sanctorio Sanctorio, Santorio Santorii, Sanctorius of Padua, Sanctorio Sanctorius and various combinations of these names, was a Venetian physiologist, physician, and professor, who introduced the quantitative approach into medicine. He is also known as the inventor of several medical devices, including the thermometer. His work De Statica Medicina, written in 1614, saw many publications through 1784 and influenced generations of physicians.
Life
Santorio was born in the Mediterranean coastal town of Capodistria (today Koper, southwestern Slovenia, then part of the Republic of Venice). From 1611 to 1624 he was a professor at Padua where he performed experiments in temperature, respiration and weight. He died in Venice.
Work
Inventions
Santorio was the first to use a wind gauge, a water current meter, the pulsilogium (a device used to measure the pulse rate), an early waterbed, and a thermoscope. Whereas he invented the former two devices, it is unclear exactly who invented the latter two; it could be his friend Galileo Galilei or another person of the learned circle in Venice of which they were members.
He also invented a device which he called the "trocar" (not identical to the modern trocar) for removing bladder stones.
Santorio introduced the thermoscope in the work titled Sanctorii Sanctorii Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni in 1612.
The pulsilogium was probably the first machine of precision in medical history.Extensive experimentation with his new tool allowed Santorio to derive the circadian rhythm (24 hour cycle) of the cardiac frequency. A century later another physician, de Lacroix, used the pulsilogium to test cardiac function.
Study of metabolism
Sanctorius studied the so-called perspiratio insensibilis or insensible perspiration of the body, already known to Galen and other ancient physicians, and originated the study of metabolism. For a period of thirty years Santorio weighed himself, everything he ate and drank, as well as his urine and feces. He compared the weight of what he had eaten to that of his waste products, the latter being considerably smaller because for every eight pounds of food he ate, he excreted only 3 pounds of waste. This important experiment is the origin of the significance of weight measurement in medicine. While his experiments were replicated and augmented by his followers and were finally surpassed by those of Lavoisier in 1790, he is still celebrated as the father of experimental physiology. The "weighing chair", which he constructed and employed during this experiment, is also famous.