1747 in science

Anatomy

• Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, with the help of the artist Jan Wandelaar, produces the most exact account of the bones and muscles of the human body in Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani.
• Albrecht von Haller publishes Experiments in the Anatomy of Respiration.

  Engineering

• École royale des ponts et chaussées established in Paris under Jean-Rodolphe Perronet.

  Exploration

• June 24 – October 14 – The English ships Dobbs galley and California, under Captains William Moore and Francis Smith, explore Hudson Bay, discovering there is no Northwest Passage by this route.

  Mathematics

• Jean le Rond d'Alembert uses partial differential equations in mathematical physics.

  Medicine

• January 31 – The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.
• James Lind undertakes one of the first controlled experiments in clinical medicine, on the effect of citrus fruit as a cure for scurvy.

  Physics

• July 2 – Benjamin Robins presents a paper to the Royal Society describing the physics of a spinning projectile following his investigation of rifle barrels.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Gowin Knight

  Births

• January 19 – Johann Elert Bode, German astronomer
• March 11 – William Curtis, English botanist and entomologist
• November 23 – Baron Sigmund Zois von Edelstein, Slovenian geologist after whom zoisite is named

  Deaths

• April 2 – Johann Jacob Dillenius, German botanist, botanical artist, and physician who studied and produced several papers on cryptogams, such as mosses and algae
• August 8 – Mårten Triewald, Swedish mechanical engineer
• Johann Heinrich von Heucher, German botanist, after whom the genus heuchera is named