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 A New Herball, wherin are conteyned the names of herbes... 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 physician (died 1615)

Deaths

 * April 6 – Joachim Vadian, Swiss physician and polymath (born 1484)
 * May 6 − Johannes Baptista Montanus Italian physician and humanist (born 1498)
 * August 8 – Fray Tomás de Berlanga, Spanish Bishop of Panama and discoverer of the Galápagos Islands (born 1487)