text: * c. 520 BC – Alcmaeon of Croton distinguished veins from arteries and discovered the optic nerve.
  * c. 450 BC – Sushruta wrote the Sushruta Samhita, redacted versions of which, by the third century AD, describe over 120 surgical instruments and 300 surgical procedures, classify human surgery into eight categories, and introduce cosmetic surgery.
  * c. 450 BC – Xenophanes examined fossils and speculated on the evolution of life.
  * c. 380 BC – Diocles wrote the oldest known anatomy book and was the first to use the term anatomy.
  * c. 350 BC – Aristotle attempted a comprehensive classification of animals. His written works include Historion Animalium, a general biology of animals, De Partibus Animalium, a comparative anatomy and physiology of animals, and De Generatione Animalium, on developmental biology.
  * c. 300 BC – Theophrastos (or Theophrastus) began the systematic study of botany.
  * c. 300 BC – Herophilos dissected the human body.
  * c. 50–70 AD – Historia Naturalis by Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) was published in 37 volumes.
  * 130–200 – Claudius Galen wrote numerous treatises on human anatomy.
  * c. 1010 – Avicenna (Abu Ali al Hussein ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) published The Canon of Medicine.
  * 1543 – Andreas Vesalius publishes the anatomy treatise De humani corporis fabrica.