Nicolas Steno

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Image:Nicolaus Steno.jpg Nicolas Steno (in Danish, Niels Steensen or Niels Stensen) (January 10, 1638 - November 26, 1686) was a pioneer both in anatomy and in geology.

After having completed his university education in Copenhagen, the city of his birth, he set out travelling in Europe; in fact, he would be on the move for the rest of his life. In the Netherlands, France, and Italy he came into contact with prominent physicians and scientists, and thanks to his eminent power of observation he very soon made important discoveries. At a time when scientific studies consisted in reading the ancient authorities, Steno was bold enough to trust his own eyes, even when his observations differed from traditional doctrines.

Steno originally studied anatomy, focused at first on the muscular system and the nature of muscle contraction. He used geometry to show that a contracting muscle changes its shape but not its volume.

However, in October 1666, two fishermen caught a huge shark near the town of Livorno, and Duke Ferdinand ordered its head to be sent to Steno. Steno dissected it and published his findings in 1667. Examination of the teeth of the shark showed a striking resemblance to certain stony objects, called glossopetrae or "tongue stones," that were found in certain rocks. Ancient authorities, such as the Roman author Pliny the Elder, had suggested that these stones fell from the sky or from the moon. Others were of the opinion, also going back to ancient times, that fossils naturally grew in the rocks. Steno's contemporary Athanasius Kircher, for example, attributed fossils to a "lapidifying virtue diffused through the whole body of the geocosm."

Steno, however, argued that glossopetrae looked like shark teeth because they were shark teeth, come from the mouths of ancient sharks, and come to be buried in mud or sand that was now dry land. There were differences in composition between glossopetrae and living sharks' teeth, but Steno argued that fossils could be altered in chemical composition without changing their form, using the "corpuscular theory of matter".

Steno's work on shark teeth led him to the question of how any solid object could come to be found inside another solid object, such as a rock or a layer of rock. The "solid bodies within solids" that attracted Steno's interest included not only fossils as we would define them today, but minerals, crystals, incrustations, veins, and even entire rock layers or strata. He published his geologic studies in De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus, or Preliminary discourse to a dissertation on a solid body naturally contained within a solid in 1669. This work was extended in 1772 by Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l'Isle.

Steno was not the first to identify fossils as being from living organisms. Steno's contemporaries Robert Hooke and John Ray also argued that fossils were the remains of once-living organisms.

Steno is credited with the law of superposition, the principle of original horizontality, and the principle of lateral continuity: three defining principles of the science of stratigraphy.

Another principal known simply as Steno's law, or Steno's law of contant angles, is that the angles between corresponding faces on crystals of the same substance are the same for all examples of the mineral or material. [1]

This mindset also was important for his religious views. Having been brought up in the Lutheran faith, he nevertheless questioned its teachings, something which became for him a burning issue when confronted with Roman Catholicism while studying in Florence. After theological studies, not the least the Church Fathers, he decided that the Catholic, not the Lutheran, church was the authentic church, and as a consequence he converted to the Catholic Church.

This, however, gradually made him put aside his scientific studies. He was ordained priest, later bishop, and sent to the "missions" in Lutheran North Germany. He first worked from the city of Hannover, meeting Gottfried Leibniz there, and then moved to Hamburg. After years filled with difficult tasks, he died after much suffering at Schwerin in 1686.

His life and work have been intensely studied, in particular since the late 19th century, and especially his piety and virtue has been evaluated with a view to an eventual canonization. In 1987, he was declared "beatus" - the first step to being declared "saint" - by Pope John Paul II. He is thus now called Blessed Nicolas Steno.

The Steno Museum in Århus, Denmark is named after Steno. It holds exhibitions on the history of science and the history of medicine. It also operates a planetarium and a medical herb garden. Also, craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honor.

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Books

  • Concerning Solids naturally contained within solids (1671)
  • Elementary Mylogical Specimens (1669)
  • Anatomical Observations (1662)
  • Discours de Monsieur Stenon sur L'Anatomie du Cerveau (1669), Paris.
  • Of the anatomy of the Brain (1671)
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References

de:Nicolaus Steno et:Nicolaus Steno fr:Nicolas Sténon it:Niccolò Stenone nl:Niels Stensen ja:ニコラウス・ステノ sv:Nicolaus Steno

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