1551 in science
Astronomy
- Publication of Erasmus Reinhold's ephemeris, the Tabulae prutenicae, helping to disseminate Copernican methods of astronomical calculation.
Botany
- Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi begins to collect plants for a herbarium.
- William Turner publishes the first part of in London.
Mathematics
- Georg Joachim Rheticus publishes Canon of the Science of Triangles.
Medicine
- By July – Fifth and last outbreak of sweating sickness in England. Dr. John Caius writes the first full contemporary account of the symptoms of the disease.
- Conrad Gessner is the first to describe adipose tissue.
Zoology
- Pierre Belon publishes Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons.
- Conrad Gessner begins publication of his encyclopedic illustrated Historiae animalium in Zurich.
Publications
- Martín Cortés de Albacar publishes Breve compendio de la esfera y del arte de navegar in Spain, an influential work in cosmography, proposing spherical charts and mentioning magnetic deviation and the existence of magnetic poles.
Births
approx. date – Timothy Bright, English physicianDeaths
- April 6 – Joachim Vadian, Swiss physician and polymath
- May 6 − Johannes Baptista Montanus Italian physician and humanist
- August 8 – Fray Tomás de Berlanga, Spanish Bishop of Panama and discoverer of the Galápagos Islands