1681 in science

Physiology and medicine

• November 29 – The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh is granted a royal charter.
• John Mayow gives the first known description of mitral stenosis.

  Technology

• May 15 – The Canal du Midi in France is opened officially as the Canal Royal de Languedoc.
• Samuel Morland demonstrates improvements in water pumps.

  Publications

• Thomas Burnet's cosmogony Telluris Theoria Sacra, or Sacred Theory of the Earth is published in England.
• Spanish Jesuit astronomer Eusebio Kino publishes his observations of the Great Comet of 1680 in Mexico City as Exposisión astronómica de el cometa, one of the earliest scientific treatises published by a European in the New World.

  Births

• August 12 – Vitus Bering, Danish explorer

  Deaths

• Marie Fouquet, French medical writer