[Revised entry by James Lennox and Mariska Leunissen on April 19, 2026.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
Aristotle is properly recognized as the originator of the scientific study of life. This remains true despite the fact that many earlier Greek natural philosophers speculated on the origins of living things, and that much of the Hippocratic medical corpus – written before or during Aristotle’s lifetime – displays a serious interest in human anatomy, physiology and pathology, and occassionaly in animals and plants as well. Plato, too, has Timaeus, in the eponymous dialogue, devote a considerable part of his speech to the human body…

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