Health and Medicine During The Renaissance / Early Modern Period (1500 - 1750)

Question 1

What does the word Renaissance mean?

Answer 1

Rebirth

Question 2

How did ‘the Reformation’ help to improve health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 2

It forced hospitals to hire trained people who were not Monks or Nuns

Question 3

How did the ‘Printing Press’ help to improve health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 3

Made the publication of books easier, faster and cheaper so new ideas were spread much more quickly

Question 4

How did the Microscope help to improve health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 4

It allowed scientists and medical men to look at things in more detail.

Question 5

Who was Andreas Vesalius? Why was he important to the development of health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 5

• He dissected the human body
• Published a book called the ‘Fabric of the Human Body’
• Changed people’s views on anatomy
• People started to believe him and other’s instead of Galen
  His book was used to teach in Uni instead of Galen

Question 6

What was the name of the book Vesalius wrote? When did he write it?

Answer 6

‘Fabric of the Human Body’

1543

Question 7

Who was Ambriose Pare? Why was he important to the development of health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 7

• Found a more effective way of cauterising wounds.
• He used ligatures to tie off wounds after amputation
• Helped develop artificial limbs such as hands and arms.

Question 8

Who was William Harvey? Why was he important to the development of health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 8

• Discovered how the circulatory system worked
• The heart was the centre of the body, not the liver, and it acted as a pump that moved blood around the body
• Realised it was impossible to have too much blood
• Proved Galen wrong
• Followed blood flow in someone’s forearm
• Tried to pump liquid the wrong way though veins and couldn’t
• Looked at lizards as they are cold-blooded so their heart beats more slowly

Question 9

What was the name of the book Harvey wrote? When did he write it?

Answer 9

‘Motion of The Heart’

1628

Question 10

Who was Thomas Sydenham? Why was he important to the development of health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 10

• Created detailed descriptions of patients illnesses
• Encouraged doctors to form their own educated guess on what’s wrong with the patient
• Believed each disease had a separate and unique treatment
• Was the first person to write the description of Scarlet Fever
• Believed in leaving the body to fight as much of the illness alone as possible.

Question 11

What did Edward Jenner discover and when?

Answer 11

Vaccinations
1796 - experiment
1798 - published findings
1802 - Acknowledged by parliament

Question 12

What are vaccinations?

Answer 12

Using the dead or inactive germs of a disease or one similar to build up an immunity against a stronger form of the disease

Question 13

What does inoculation mean?

Answer 13

Involved giving a healthy person a mild dose of the disease.

Dried scabs were scratched into the skin or blown up their nose to build up a resistance.

Question 14

Who was Alexander Gordon? Why was he important to the development of health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 14

• Realised that women treated by wise-women or midwives were less likely to get child bed fever than those treated by doctors.
• Noticed that hygiene stopped or slowed the spread of disease.

Question 15

Who was John Hunter? Why was he important to the development of health and medicine during the Renaissance?

Answer 15

• Believed that as much healing should be left to the body as possible
• Spent a lot of time dissecting bodies which resulted in him being accused of ‘burking’
• Became known as the Father of Scientific Surgery

Question 16

Why was surgery still so dangerous during the Renaissance?

Answer 16

• Never washed their surgical gowns as the more blood on it showed experience and was considered a badge of honour
• Didn’t use anaesthetic, instead used wine and opium, but incorrect dosages caused many deaths
• For most of the period, many still learnt from and followed Galen

Question 17

What was ‘Quackery’ (quack cures)?

Answer 17

• People selling fake cures to the public knowing they didn’t work.
• Claimed they cured ‘everything’
• Mainly made of opium and alcohol.

Question 18

What were hospitals like during the Renaissance?

Answer 18

• A lot were shut down after Henry 8th shut down all the monasteries.
• Those that continued to be used were owned by councils but still only cared for the elderly and poor.

Question 19

How did public health improve during the Renaissance compared to the Middle Ages?

Answer 19

• They had ‘Rakers’ that would clean the streets
• The Great Fire of London cause all streets to be built wider
• Isolation was enforced when the Plague came around
• Henry 8th passed a law that banned slaughter houses in towns and cities
• He also allowed councils to impose tax to pay for sewers

Question 20

Why was public health still very bad during the Renaissance?

Answer 20

• They never built the sewers
• There were multiple outbreaks of the plague
• Before 1750, the connection between dirt and disease had not been made.
• Gin had become a huge social and health problem.

Question 21

When did the Great Plague happen?

Answer 21

1665

Question 22

How many people did the Great Plague kill?

Answer 22

Over 100,000

Question 23

What did people believe caused the Great Plague?

Answer 23

• Miasma
• God
• Movement of planets
• Humours
• Rotting waste

Question 24

What did people do to try to prevent or get rid of the Plague?

Answer 24

• Quarantine
• Burn barrels of tar in the streets
• Chewed or smoked tobacco
• Burnt or smelt strong smelling herbs
• Dogs and cats were ordered to be killed
• Prayer
• Drank Plague Water, a quack cure