Chapter Two, Topic One: Impact of the Renaissance

Question 1

When and where did Andrea Vesalius publish his work - what did it prove?

Answer 1

• Published his work in ‘The Fabric of the Human Body’ in 1543
• He proved Galen’s mistakes such as: Human jaw bone is made from one bone not two, breastbone has 3 parts not 7, blood doesn’t flow into the heart through invisible holes in the septum

Question 2

What was the short term impact that Andrea Vesalius had on medicine?

Answer 2

• His book showed the body in more detail. By 1560s, it was used in England to train doctors and correct mistakes
• Some doctors carried out human and not animal dissections to find out more

Question 3

What was the long term impact that Andrea Vesalius had on medicine?

Answer 3

• Other doctors gradually followed his example and started to challenge traditional ideas in other areas of medicine
• May have encouraged Pare and Harvey’s work
• He insisted on enquiring which was a turning point. By late 1600s, most students were encouraged to find things out themselves and dissected themselves

Question 4

How did the printing press help improve the knowledge of anatomy in Britain?

Answer 4

Johannes Gutenberg 1439 invented the printing press
- This was a cheaper way of producing books and each copy was the same
- Thousands copies of books like Vesalius’ could be sold over Europe, so doctors in Britain improved their knowledge

Question 5

What did William Harvey discover?

Answer 5

Proved that heart pumps blood around the body and that the body has a one-way system for blood. Published ‘An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood’ in 1628

Question 6

What were the short term impacts of William Harvey’s work?

Answer 6

• Some doctors ignored his theory and said he was wrong as he was challenging Galen
• It took nearly 50 years before teachers at University of Paris taught Harvey’s ideas rather than Galen’s
• After he published his discovery, fewer patients came to see him as many thought his idea was mad

Question 7

What were the long term impacts of William Harvey’s work?

Answer 7

• Ideas were accepted in the long term
• Areas of medicine today depend on understanding of how blood circulates and how the heart works
• Other doctors followed his scientific methods to build on his work e.g. Professor Marcello Malphighi used one of the first effective microscopes to discover capillaries

Question 8

What did Ambroise Paré discover?

Answer 8

• Developed artificial limbs (over 50 kinds of false body parts)
• He included drawings of them in his books to spread the idea
• Mixed an ointment made from egg yolks, oil of roses and turpentine to prevent wounds getting infected as he ran out of boiling oil. The ointment, to his surprise, worked much better
• This new ointment became widely accepted
• Tried using ligatures instead of cauterisation to stop bleeding as cauterisation was extremely painful and didn’t always work

Question 9

What impact did Ambroise Paré have on surgery?

Answer 9

• Encouraged surgeons to try new techniques
• Helped to raise status of barber surgeons. In England, Henry VIII gave Barber surgeons a charter to form the company of barber surgeons, making it a respected profession