Historical Roots.

Two historically disjoint approaches to biomedical investigation are identified: the ‘(patho)physiological', associated with Harvey and Virchow, and the ‘mechanistic', associated with Boerhaave, du Bois Reymond and the consensus model of DVT. The origins of both traditions are traced to the 17th century, the Scientific Revolution and the dawn of natural philosophy. Their developments into the 18th and early 19th centuries are outlined. The lines of investigation that led on the one hand to the elucidation of the blood coagulation mechanism, and on the other to the seminal contributions of Virchow, are identified. Care is taken to distinguish ideas in both mainstream traditions from belief in a ‘vital force', and other possible sources of semantic confusion are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]