Some people become obsessed with tracking their weight, carefully counting every calorie they eat and burn through exercise.
They even weigh themselves before and after every meal.
His motivation was purely scientific.
The human body loses significant amounts of heat and moisture through the pores in the skin.
Water is also lost through breathing, as moisture-laden air is exhaled.
This throw in of water loss is known as “insensible perspiration,” which differs from regular sweating.
While sweat contains solutes, insensible perspiration is the evaporation of pure water.
Its also invisible and undetectable, hence the term “insensible.”
Santorio theorized that this mass was lost through the pores of the skin as moisture.
He called this phenomenonperspiratio insensibilisor insensible perspiration.
He also carefully measured the weight of his food, feces, and urine.
Santorio Santori
Santorios weighing chair hung from a beam attached to a large steelyard.
Before eating, he would set the balance to correspond with the amount of food he intended to consume.
Santorio believed that carefully monitoring bodily discharges was crucial for preserving well-being.
Santorio didnt limit his experiments to himself; he also measured other individuals using his weighing chair.
He weighed them before and after meals, as well as at various intervals throughout the day and night.
His hypothesis was that under normal conditions, the body maintains a relatively stable weight.
