Marcello Malpighi and the difficult birth of modern life sciences

All his life, Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), the founder of modern microscopic anatomy, was unwillingly involved in difficult debates within a reactionary medical milieu that questioned the significance of modern science and its utility to medicine. Malpighi's responses to his detractors, included in posthumous works first published in 1697 by the Royal Society, offer an important insight into a critical phase of scientific progress in the 17th century and help to reveal the prevailing conception of science. In some ways, Malpighi's views predate important ideas in modern biology.