Santorio, Santorio

(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.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica