In 1614 the physician Santorio Santorio published Ars de Statica Medicina, arguing that health depends on balancing what enters the body with what leaves it. He used a weighing chair on a scale and weighed himself before and after meals, sleep, exercise and bathroom trips, a routine he kept up for about thirty years. From these records he identified what he called imperceptible perspiration, the water lost through skin and breath that cannot be seen but, he claimed, exceeded all visible excretions combined. The book was reprinted and translated for more than a century.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.