**1. Introduction**

It was in the 15th century that anatomy (still undistinguished from physiology) started to strongly develop. It was part of the core of the European society developments, upon the development of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Renaissance, and the early Modern period, the melting pot for important medical developments, announcing the "European miracle" of the following centuries [1]. But for all practical purposes, physiology was considered to be born in the 17th century, most likely upon the publication of William Harvey's book on the circulation of the blood, in 1628 (**Figure 1A**) [2].

It was on Harvey's work that for the first time traditional (and unquestionable) beliefs about the heart and the circulation (dating back to Galen, 1500 years earlier) have been dethroned. Harvey declined to consider uncritically what he had been taught and insisted on relying on his own scientific observations. This approach is considered to be one of the most revolutionary ideas in science in the 17th century, and Harvey's greatest contribution to science [3].

#### **Figure 1.**

*A: Title page of William Harvey's De Motu Cordis (1698) to the left and demonstration of blood flow in the veins of the forearm to the right. B: Above; Malpighi's drawing of the pulmonary capillaries and alveoli: 2 lungs with the alveoli on the left and the capillaries on the right. Below; pulmonary capillaries in a diagram of an alveolus that has been opened up.*

However, this was not without controversy. Many have initially opposed to the concept of physiology however great names such as Marcello Malpighi (**Figure 1B**) and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek have supported the thoughts on human function, joining efforts in developing modern physiology.

Following the initial scientific developments, a halt followed between 1750 and 1850 throughout Europe with critical thinking of medicine as a science coming to a stop and being replaced by an artistic view of medical science, resourcing to texts in Latin. This came to such an extent that the microscope was not made available to students in Leiden as was auscultation not included in the teaching curricula, albeit having been discovered in 1819 [4].

In the middle of the 1800's German doctors proposed the 'medicine equals science' concept and pointed towards the reintroduction of science in the curricula, motivated by Rudolf Virchow (cellular pathology) and by significant scientific advances at that time such as the periodic table (Dmitri Mendelejev) and upon the publication of the "Origin of Species" (Charles Darwin). Noteworthy, important technological advancements were also made at that time such as the development of steam locomotives and railroads, and the first steel steamship crossing the Atlantic. For the above, ideal conditions for the advancing of physiology has also occurred giving rise to physiologists like Carl F.W. Ludwig in Germany and Claude Bernard in France [5].

Specializations within general physiology also started, namely on gastrointestinal physiology (William Beaumont); pathology (Rudolf Virchow) and bacteriology (Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch), with scientific journals being written as the basis for solidification of these new physiology branches such as the "Archiv für Pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medicin" (Virchow and Reinhardt; today called Virchows Archiv) and Pflügers Archiv (today called Pflügers Archiv - European Journal of Physiology), laying the basis for modern physiology in the 19th–20th century with names such as Pavlov (psychophysiology), Sherrington (neurophysiology), Mosso (ergograph, sphygmomanometer), Golgi (nervous system, malaria), and Ringer (Ringer's solution). This great evolution was supported (and recognized) with the creation of the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine, first awarded in 1901 [5].

#### *Virtual Physiology: A Tool for the 21st Century DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99671*

The rapid changes observed in modern societies have caused higher level education providers (i.e. Higher Education) to face a variety of challenges in order to cope with today's demands [6]. This has, in all, lead to the training of more enthusiastic students in an array of interdisciplinary fields [7], generating effective pedagogical methods and strategies to the point that these are now recognized as one of the most important necessities of educational systems [8].

Physiology is today recognized as the bedrock of medical curriculum [9] and, as such, the preference for a particular content delivery method has been vastly investigated by to pass knowledge logically and strategically to students [10]. A greater focus has been given now on critical thinking skills in contrast to emphasis on the systems-based didactic lectures [11]. This has been done also due to the longstanding recognition of the Physiology Science as a challenging discipline for students to grasp, assimilate and employ in clinical sciences. Furthermore, as a core science in the disease process, its understanding is of the utmost importance for an integrated knowledge [12, 13].

As such, physiology educationists are making great efforts towards focusing on ways to obtain vertical and horizontal integration in the discipline of Physiology, exceeding the typical periodical assessment of the medical curriculum by further stimulating and introducing a myriad of new teaching and learning approaches to captivate and augment students' knowledge acquisition [14].
