The Renaissance Kidney-Nephrology in and about the Sixteenth Century

The endeavor to understand the workings of the human body is as old as civilization; but it is in the intellectual movement of the Renaissance that its actual scientific study began in earnest and has not ceased growing since then. It was in the 16th century that the study of organs was launched and with it that of the kidney, which was then conceived as an accessory organ to clear the excess water ingested with food. The study of the structural basis of kidney function was launched by Bartolomeo Eustachio (1514-1574); the elements of its physiology and pathology were promulgated by Jean Fernel (1497-1558), and that of the chemical study of urine and of the principal cause of kidney disease then, calculi, instigated by Joan Baptista Van Helmont (1577-1644). The methodological approaches of these and their contemporary investigators, which were crystallized and formulated by Francis Bacon (1561-1626), opened the gates of the Scientific Revolution that followed in the 17th century, beginning with that of describing the circulation in 1628 by William Harvey (1564-1657) that would finally free the kidney from the shackles imposed on it as a mere accessory organ to the liver in Galen's physiology.