To ask if any doctors or anatomists or physiologists can help me?

[Aralyop]

I’m a stressed mature student and I’m not in a library and I’m trying to work out if there was someone in particular who invented the “11 systems of the human body”?

Or if there was a particular date when the 11 systems were agreed on. Like say “first agreed on and appeared in grays anatomy on X date”

I’ve googled till my fingers are sore but no joy - I’ve got general history of anatomy but I’m looking for a quick reference name/date job.

ive just googled and found this
explorable.com/andreas-vesalius
dont know if its any help

Thanks simon for that

It’s more a “systems breakdown” date on looking at - I’m writing a paper in systems biology (no medical knowledge here!) and am bringing in references to when we started looking at people as “11 systems” (eg cardiovascular and endocrine and reproductive) rather than one whole unit.

I’ve found references saying “anatomists and doctors do X” but I’m curious about when this decision was made and what intellectually set it off

Not much help but... I have a physiology degree and have never heard of the term or idea of 11 systems. In fact if you’d asked me how many systems there are I’d be all “errrrrm” and counting on my fingers!

I don't know if this will point you in the right direction (or lead you down a citation/references black hole)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_system

The history section and the external links/references at the bottom of the page are what I was looking at.

Hi...another mature student here...have a read through this wiki page and pick out the bits you may find relevant to search in more depth. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anatomy
If you fail to find a definitive answer I would just go with something along the lines of ‘as described in Grays Anatomy 1858 (if they are described as such in that edition)
Good luck!

Also have a look at this by Andreas Vesalius published 1543, De humani corporis fabrica.

DH is head of physiology at a Uni and I asked him about the 11 systems and he's never heard of that as a term either.

The idea of 11 different systems would have evolved - it's not like they were all discovered at the same time. You could discuss William Harvey - really he did a lot on the CV system (published 1628 I think) so you could just use that as an example and maybe contrast this with a system which was more recently described.