Leonardo da Vinci is an eminent name in the world of art. He is considered as one of the greatest painters of all time. His notable works are Mona Lisa, The Last supper, Lady with an Ermine, Virgin of the Rocks and others. His other areas of interest included science and invention, human anatomy, sculpture, architecture, music, engineering, literature, botany, astronomy, etc.Though Leonardo da Vinci was primarily renowned as a painter but his contributions in all these fields are worth mentioning.
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| Leonardo da Vinci |
It is very difficult to summarise all of his works in a single article. So, I have decided to write about the one which is of immense importance.
DA VINCI's CONTRIBUTION IN MEDICAL SCIENCE
Leonardo da Vinci greatly contributed towards the development of medical science. He mainly focused on human anatomy.
Once he was asked by a Veronese anatomist Della Tore to do the illustrations for an anatomy text. Della Tore was to do the dissecting and he was to do the drawings but suddenly Della Tore died. After Della Tore's death, Leonardo took up both the works. He dissected and drew more than 10 human bodies in the cathedral cellar of the mortuary of Santa Spirito under the secrecy of candlelight as the church believed in the sanctity of human body and forbade dissection.
During his lifetime, he dissected more than 30 human bodies, both healthy and diseased, to get a complete knowledge of the human body. He was among the first ones to provide both accurate drawings and proper explanation of human anatomy. His work, The Vitruvian Man, is an example of this. The Vitruvian Man is a drawing of a man standing inside a circle and square in two different positions. This gives an exact idea of the proportions of the human body. The Vitruvian Man is found in a page in one of the notebooks that contained a lot of information about human bodies. These notebooks weren't famous until the 1900s. Many sketches and ideas present in the notebooks led to the invention of many medical methods that are used today.
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| The Vitruvian Man |
Some of the important ideas found in Da Vinci's notebooks
Artificial limbs and synthetic organs
Leonardo da Vinci's studies on how limbs and other organs work have inspired scientists to invent replacements of body parts for people to function normally.
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| Artificial limb |
Contact Lens
Da Vinci gave the concept of contact lenses through his sketch in 1508. This contributed to the invention of contact lenses in 1800s.
Contact lens
Surgical Robot
Da Vinci designed a robot that could stand, sit, wave its arms and raise its visor through a series of pulleys and mechanism. It is known as Leonardo's robot. In 2002, Mark Rosheim built a successful prototype of this robot. This proved that Da Vinci had a perfect understanding of how human body and the joints worked. Leonardo's robot inspired scientists to build a surgical robot. The surgical robot was named after Da Vinci and is used today to perform surgeries in heart, prostate and also in joint replacements. This robot has reduced surgery time, increased surgical precision, shortened recovery time and also relieved the doctors from extra stress.
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| Surgical Robot |
Leonardo da Vinci's contribution in anatomy and other fields of medical science is thus indispensable. His contributions in his other areas of interests are also noteworthy. All these certainly gives us the idea how genius he was and why he is considered as one of the most diversely talented individuals to have ever lived.
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