[10] From 1611 to 1624, Santorio was the chair of theoretical medicine at the University of Padua where he performed the very first experiments on bodily temperature, insensible perspiration and weight.

Most notably, his merits lie in the elaboration of an early form of corpuscularianism and above all in the invention of precision instruments meant to ascertain the homeostatic balance of the body, especially with regard to pulse frequency, temperature, and insensible perspiration.

[13] Santorio was the first to use a wind gauge, a water current meter, the pulsilogium (a device used to measure the pulse rate), and a thermoscope.

[14] His pulsilogium and thermoscope predate similar inventions by Galileo Galilei, Paolo Sarpi and Giovanni Francesco Sagredo who were his learned circle of friends in Venice.

Extensive experimentation with his new tool allowed Santorio to standardise the Galenic rationale of the pulse and to describe quantitatively various regular and irregular frequencies.

[21] While his experiments were replicated and augmented by his followers and were finally surpassed by Antoine Lavoisier in 1790, he is still celebrated as the father of experimental physiology.