From Da Vinci to Harvey: The Development of Mechanical Analogy in Medicine from 1500 to 1650

'Although human genius reveals itself in various inventions, corresponding with various instruments to one and the same end, it will never find an invention more beautiful, easier or shorter than that of Nature, since in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing superfluous.'! '... those who knowing how many different automata or moving machines the industry ofman can devise, using only a few pieces, by comparison with the great multitude of bones,muscles, nerves, arteries, veins and all the other parts which are in the bodyofevery animal, will consider this body a machine, which, having been made by the hands of God, is incomparably better ordered, and has in it more admirable movements than any of those which can be invented by men,"