1551 in science explained

Astronomy

• Publication of Erasmus Reinhold's ephemeris, the Tabulae prutenicae, helping to disseminate Copernican methods of astronomical calculation.

Botany

• Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi begins to collect plants for a herbarium.
• William Turner publishes the first part of in London.

Mathematics

• Georg Joachim Rheticus publishes Canon of the Science of Triangles.

Medicine

• By July – Fifth and last outbreak of sweating sickness in England. Dr. John Caius writes the first full contemporary account of the symptoms of the disease.^[1]
• Conrad Gessner is the first to describe adipose tissue.^[2]

Zoology

• Pierre Belon publishes Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons.
• Conrad Gessner begins publication of his encyclopedic illustrated Historiae animalium in Zurich.

Publications

• Martín Cortés de Albacar publishes Breve compendio de la esfera y del arte de navegar in Spain, an influential work in cosmography, proposing spherical charts and mentioning magnetic deviation and the existence of magnetic poles.^[3]

Births

• approx. date – Timothy Bright, English physician (died 1615)

Deaths

• April 6 – Joachim Vadian, Swiss physician and polymath (born 1484)
• May 6 − Johannes Baptista Montanus Italian physician and humanist (born 1498)
• August 8 – Fray Tomás de Berlanga, Spanish Bishop of Panama and discoverer of the Galápagos Islands (born 1487)

Notes and References

1. Published in Latin in the Louvain Opera aliquot and in English as A Boke or Counseill Against the Disease Commonly Called the Sweate, or Sweatyng Sicknesse (London, 1552). Vivian. Nutton. Caius, John (1510–1573). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. 2004. 2012-05-30. 10.1093/ref:odnb/4351.
2. Cannon. Barbara. Nedergaard. Jan. 2008-08-21. Developmental biology: Neither fat nor flesh. Nature. 454. 7207. 947–8. 10.1038/454947a. 18719573. 2008Natur.454..947C. free.
3. Book: Barrera-Osorio, Antonio. Experiencing nature: the Spanish American empire and the early scientific revolution. University of Texas Press. Austin. 2006. 978-0-292-70981-2.