Throughout the developed world, today's medicine is an important arena of applied science. Particularly in the past 100 years, the exploitation of science for medical applications has been relentlessly successful, and stunning developments have taken place regarding the application of fundamental research in biology, chemistry, and physics to pharmaceuticals, medical technologies, and the practice of medicine. Highly sophisticated, science-based medical technologies have emerged that have transformed medicine and improved the identification, understanding, and treatment of disease. These applied-science technologies have changed what it means to be a patient and a physician. If we consider astronomy as the first discipline revolutionized during the Scientific Revolution, medicine can be considered one of the last disciplines, if not the last, that encountered revolution. Actually, the modern medicine emerged slowly from the mid-19th century. The main reason for this delay in the emergence of the modern medicine O was the fact that human dissection was prohibited by the late 19th century and physicians did not have detailed information about body organs and their exact functions. It was after the 2nd half of the 19th century that because of the weakening of the church power over European universities, medical doctors start scientific dissection in medical schools and a new generation of well-educated physicians appeared. O was the fact that two pseudoscientific doctrines relating to medicine emerged from Vienna in the latter part of the 18th century and attained wide notoriety. Mesmerism, a belief in "animal magnetism" sponsored by Franz Anton Mesmer, probably owed any therapeutic value it had to suggestions given while the patient was under hypnosis. Phrenology, propounded by Franz Joseph Gall, held that the contours of the skull are a guide to an individual's mental faculties and character traits; this theory remained popular throughout the 19th century. These two pseudoscientific doctrines, for a long time, diverted medical research from its scientific path. O was that fact that the view of French philosopher René Descartes that the human body is a machine and that it functions mechanically had its repercussions in medical thought. Majority of physicians, especially in France, gave attention to the mechanics and statics of the body and to the physical laws that govern its movements. In this way, medical knowledge reduced to physical understanding of the body. O was the fact that medical practice has always been a combination of different sciences and technology. Modern medicine could not emerge before revolutionary developments in sciences such as chemistry, pharmacology, cell theory, germ theory, pathology, physiology..... and in diagnostic and imaging technologies.

Throughout the developed world, today's medicine is an important arena of applied science. Particularly in the past 100 years, the exploitation of science for medical applications has been relentlessly successful, and stunning developments have taken place regarding the application of fundamental research in biology, chemistry, and physics to pharmaceuticals, medical technologies, and the practice of medicine. Highly sophisticated, science-based medical technologies have emerged that have transformed medicine and improved the identification, understanding, and treatment of disease. These applied-science technologies have changed what it means to be a patient and a physician. If we consider astronomy as the first discipline revolutionized during the Scientific Revolution, medicine can be considered one of the last disciplines, if not the last, that encountered revolution. Actually, the modern medicine emerged slowly from the mid-19th century. The main reason for this delay in the emergence of the modern medicine O was the fact that human dissection was prohibited by the late 19th century and physicians did not have detailed information about body organs and their exact functions. It was after the 2nd half of the 19th century that because of the weakening of the church power over European universities, medical doctors start scientific dissection in medical schools and a new generation of well-educated physicians appeared. O was the fact that two pseudoscientific doctrines relating to medicine emerged from Vienna in the latter part of the 18th century and attained wide notoriety. Mesmerism, a belief in "animal magnetism" sponsored by Franz Anton Mesmer, probably owed any therapeutic value it had to suggestions given while the patient was under hypnosis. Phrenology, propounded by Franz Joseph Gall, held that the contours of the skull are a guide to an individual's mental faculties and character traits; this theory remained popular throughout the 19th century. These two pseudoscientific doctrines, for a long time, diverted medical research from its scientific path. O was that fact that the view of French philosopher René Descartes that the human body is a machine and that it functions mechanically had its repercussions in medical thought. Majority of physicians, especially in France, gave attention to the mechanics and statics of the body and to the physical laws that govern its movements. In this way, medical knowledge reduced to physical understanding of the body. O was the fact that medical practice has always been a combination of different sciences and technology. Modern medicine could not emerge before revolutionary developments in sciences such as chemistry, pharmacology, cell theory, germ theory, pathology, physiology..... and in diagnostic and imaging technologies.