Santorio Santorio, also known as Sanctorius, was born at Capodistria (now Italy) on March 29, 1561; he died in Venice on February 22, 1636. He was the founder of modern quantitative medical research. After graduating in medicine at the University of Padua in 1582, Sanctorius began practice in Venice. In 1587, he was appointed physician to the King of Poland, in which capacity he remained for 14 years. Upon returning from Poland, he re-established his practice in Venice. In 1611, he was called to the Chair of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Padua, where he remained until his resignation in 1629 and return to practice and research in Venice.

Sanctorius was largely responsible for the entry of clinical observation and experimental medicine into the physician's domain in the late sixteenth century. (His counterpart in England was William Harvey.) Sanctorius' introduction of the physical sciences into medical investigation has led to his being referred to as a...