Did medicine 'stand still' during the Middle Ages and Renaissance?

Question 1

True or false: in the Middle Ages people started to believe in astrological reasons for illness?

Answer 1

True.

Question 2

How many hospitals did the Christian church build in England between 1000 and 1500?

Answer 2

700

Question 3

What was John of Aderne famous for?

Answer 3

Being a fantastic English surgeon, the manual of surgery he wrote called ‘Practica,’ using opium and henbane to dull pain in surgery and forming the Guild of Surgeons in London in 1368.

Question 4

When did Louis Pasteur publish Germ Theory?

Answer 4

1861

Question 5

Which theme is John Hunter connected to?

Answer 5

Surgery and Anatomy.

Question 6

What important anatomical discovery did Herophilus make at Alexandria?

Answer 6

The brain controls the body.

Question 7

Did Vesalius set out to prove Galen wrong?

Answer 7

No. He read Galen’s works carefully but started to notice that what he was reading and what he was seeing during dissections did not match. That was when he realised that a lot of Galen’s anatomical facts were based on animal dissection and therefore wrong.

Question 8

What are the years of the Dark Ages?

Answer 8

500-1400 AD

Question 9

How did the factor chance help Pare?

Answer 9

It was by chance that he ran out of boiling oil.

Question 10

What name is given to the type of doctor who performs operations?

Answer 10

Surgeon

Question 11

What was the natural explanation of disease in the pre-historic period?

Answer 11

There wasn’t one

Question 12

What are the years of the Renaissance?

Answer 12

1400-1750

Question 13

What is disease and infection the story of?

Answer 13

The story of what people throughout History believed made them unwell and how they tried to treat illnesses.

Question 14

What are the three themes comprising the History of Medicine?

Answer 14

Disease and infection, surgery and anatomy, public health.

Question 15

In a Christian church hospital of the Middle Ages, who would treat your illness?

Answer 15

Nobody. Christians believed God would cure you, they only made you comfortable and prayed for you.

Question 16

What was the book published by Vesalius called?

Answer 16

The Fabric of the Human Body.

Question 17

How did astrology impact medicine in the Middle Ages?

Answer 17

People started to think that the movement of the stars and the planets could explain illness or give the best time to conduct an operation.

Question 18

What was Pare’s alternative to cauterising?

Answer 18

Tying blood vessels up with ligatures.

Question 19

Define supernatural explanations of disease.

Answer 19

Explanations based on beliefs rather than anything physical.

Question 20

In what year and period did the Black Death arrive in England?

Answer 20

1348 - Dark Ages

Question 21

What is an epidemic?

Answer 21

A disease which spreads widely, harms/kills lots of people and is very difficult to stop.

Question 22

Why is John Hunter famous in the History of medicine?

Answer 22

He was a famous army surgeon and later surgeon to King George III, he published helpful books such as ‘On venereal disease’ which he researched by operating on himself, he proved that gonorrhea ad syphilis were different diseases, he had a collection of 3000 preserved specimens including an Irish giant.

Question 23

What would a doctor find that was useful in the Canon of Medicine by Avicenna?

Answer 23

The medical properties of 760 different drugs and chapters on medical problems such as anorexia and obesity.

Question 24

What sort of pictures would you have found in Vesalius’ book?

Answer 24

Detailed drawings of the human body.

Question 25

Why was Galen so popular with the Christian church?

Answer 25

He taught his students that the human body fitted together in a well designed whole. This suggested that a greater being (God) had designed the human body. That’s why Christians liked him.

Question 26

When was Guy’s hospital founded and what was different about it?

Answer 26

1724. Different because founded by a local businessman, Thomas Guy, and not the Christian church.

Question 27

What was wound man?

Answer 27

A diagram used to instruct surgeons in the Middle Ages how to treat various battlefield injuries.

Question 28

How were Galen’s dissection operations limited?

Answer 28

They were often conducted on animals not people.

Question 29

What is a fun and memorable poem for remembering the first letter of each of the time periods (in the right order)?

Answer 29

People Eat Green Rolos During Rows In Turkey

Question 30

What did Harvey develop to help him prove how blood circulated around the body?

Answer 30

Think rods that could be pushed into veins to prove the direction of blood flow.

Question 31

What idea of Galen’s did Harvey prove wrong?

Answer 31

That blood was made in the liver to replace that which was burnt up by the body.

Question 32

What are the factors we use in the History of Medicine?

Answer 32

Religion, Chance, War, Individuals, Science & Technology , Communications.

Question 33

Define natural explanations of disease.

Answer 33

Explanations based on physical evidence, observation and scientific deduction (even if the science is wrong).

Question 34

What did Vesalius prove about the human heart that showed Galen was wrong?

Answer 34

That blood did not pass through the septum, it moved in a different way.

Question 35

What is public health the story of?

Answer 35

The story of what the government in any time period did to improve the health of its people.

Question 36

Who would you go to for treatment in Pre-historic times.

Answer 36

The medicine man or shaman.

Question 37

What invention of 1451 was as important to communications as the internet in modern times?

Answer 37

The printing press.

Question 38

What was the Christian attitude to dissection in the Middle Ages?

Answer 38

It was not allowed at first. Later, it was allowed in medical schools but under strictly controlled conditions.

Question 39

When was John of Aderne around?

Answer 39

In the Middle AGes.

Question 40

Why did some people in England during the Renaissance believe that being touched by the King would heal them?

Answer 40

Because he was supposed to represent God.

Question 41

What did Rhazes achieve?

Answer 41

The first accurate descriptions of measles and smallpox.

Question 42

True/false: people understood disease better than they had done in 1348 when the Great Plague returned in 1665?

Answer 42

False

Question 43

What was cauterising?

Answer 43

Sealing a wound and stopping it from bleeding by busing red hot iron.

Question 44

How did Harvey use vivisection on animals to prove his theories?

Answer 44

He dissected live, cold blooded animals whose hearts beat very slowly. This meant that he could see the movements of each muscle in the heart.

Question 45

When was the printing press invented?

Answer 45

1451.

Question 46

What is surgery and anatomy the story of?

Answer 46

The story of people’s knowledge through History of the human body plus how operations have changed and improved over time.

Question 47

In what year was the ‘Great stink’ in London?

Answer 47

1858

Question 48

What medical options were available to unwell people during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance?

Answer 48

Barber-surgeons, Apothecaries, Wise-women, Quacks.

Question 49

What famous book did Avicenna write?

Answer 49

The Canon of Medicine

Question 50

In what year and period did William Harvey prove the circulation of the blood?

Answer 50

1628- Renaissance

Question 51

Why might someone trying to avoid the Black Death sit in a sewer?

Answer 51

Because the smell there would be worse than the bad smells that they thought would bring the Black Death.