Sanctorius (redirected from Sanctorius of Padua)

Sanctorius (săngktôr`ēəs), Ital. Santorio, 1561–1636, Italian physiologist. He was a professor at Padua (1611–24). By his quantitative experiments in temperature, respiration, and weight, he measured what he called "insensible perspiration" and laid the foundation for the study of metabolism. Among the instruments that he designed was a clinical thermometer. He wrote De statica medicina (1614; tr. 5th ed. 1737).

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Santorio, Santorio

 Latin Sanctorius

(born March 29, 1561, Capodistria—died Feb. 22, 1636, Venice) Italian physician. He adapted several of Galileo's inventions to develop a medical thermometer and a pulse clock. To test Galen's assertion that respiration also occurs through the skin as “insensible perspiration,” Santorio built a large scale on which he frequently ate, worked, and slept, so he could study his body-weight changes in relation to his solid and liquid intake and output. After 30 years, he found the total of visible excreta was less than the amount ingested; his study marked the introduction of quantitative procedure into medical research. His On Medical Measurement (1614) was the first systematic study of basal metabolism.

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Sanctorius 

(also Santorio Santorio). Born Mar. 29, 1561; died Feb. 22, 1636, in Venice. Italian physician, anatomist, physiologist, and noted iatrophysicist.

Sanctorius was a professor at the University of Padua. He practiced medicine in Poland, Hungary, and Croatia. His principal investigations dealt with human metabolism. Sanctorius gave special attention to the study of respiration and “insensible perspiration” from the skin surface. In experiments that he conducted on himself, he strove to establish and render in quantitative indexes all physiological processes in the body.

Sanctorius invented many measuring instruments, including an instrument for measuring the force of arterial pulsation and a scale for systematically observing weight changes in humans under various conditions. In 1626, together with Galileo, he constructed the first mercury thermometer. Sanctorius correlated his research in the book De statica medicina (1614).

REFERENCE

Zubov, V. P. “Santorio Santorio.” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, 1962, issue 13.

P. E. ZABLUDOVSKII