Word: leonardo
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...discovering that the brain is connected to a network of two types of nerve fibers, one set controlling motion, the other, sensation. This knowledge was lost in the Middle Ages, and superstition again took hold. Only when taboos against dissection were lifted during the Renaissance did thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci once again understand pain in terms of the nervous system...
...period of many years, atherosclerosis chokes off the flow of life-sustaining blood. The disease, resulting from the buildup of fibrous material, or plaque, in the arteries, has been killing people for centuries. Scientists have found plaque in the arteries of an Egyptian mummy dating from approximately 100 B.C. Leonardo da Vinci described atherosclerosis in his Dell'Anatomia, identifying it as the cause of a "slow death without any fever" that afflicts the elderly. It was not until this century that scientists began to realize that this disease of advancing age actually begins in youth, especially in cultures where...
...sexuality was the only area where Leonardo's aversions interfered with his quest for knowledge. His unrelenting discipline in observation bore immense fruit...
...anatomical studies, taken as a whole, represent the greatest leap in knowledge of the body made by any man in history, until Vesalius published his epochal De Humani Carporis Fabrica in 1543, nearly a quarter-century after Leonardo's death. Indeed, many of the artist's discoveries would not be rediscovered until well into the 18th century. What medical history might have been if most of Leonardo's notebooks had not been scattered or lost one can only guess...
...Leonardo's incomparable power of abstraction, combined with his powerful eye for detail (how does one see what is not yet named?), that made him a great anatomist. Both always coexist in the drawings, but their proportion varies...