Health and the people- The Renaissance

Question 1

When was the Renaissance?

Answer 1

Late 1400s

Question 2

When was the printing press invented?

Answer 2

1451

Question 3

What discoveries / inventions improved medicine in the Renaissance?

Answer 3

• printing press- 1451
• discovery of the Americas and increased trade (e.g. Elizabethan times)
• new art styles of realism led artists to study the body more closely

Question 4

Who was the individual that revolutionised anatomical working in the Renaissance?

Answer 4

Andreas Vesalius

Question 5

What book was published and by who during the Renaissance that revolutionised anatomy and dissections?

Answer 5

The Fabric of the Human Body [1543]- Andres Vesalius

Question 6

How did Vesalius do things differently?

Answer 6

• he dissected the body himself rather than having his assistant do it for him
• Vesalius proved how Galen’s ideas were incorrect as they were based off of animal dissections rather than human ones

Question 7

What text was used by barber surgeons in the Renaissance and who was it by?

Answer 7

Compendiosa- Andres Vesalius [1545]

Question 8

What book did surgeons originally use to treat gunshot wounds in the Renaissance

Answer 8

book Of Wounds in General [1525]- Jean de Vigo

• wounds should be burnt using boiling oil
• then a cream of rose oil, egg white and turpentine should be smeared on them

Question 9

What did Paré differ from standard practices?

Answer 9

• He ran out of hot oil and only used a cream of rose oil, egg white and turpentine
• he found this was much better for the patients
• he encouraged use of ligatures around individual blood vessels to stop bleeding, an old idea he revived from Galen
• he designed the ‘bec de corbin’ or ‘crow’s beak’ clamp that could halt bleeding while the bloodvessel was being tied off with a ligature
• he designed artificial limbs for patients who he had amputated from

Question 10

By who was Paré inflenced?

Answer 10

Andreas Vesalius

Question 11

What book did Paré publish?

Answer 11

Works on Surgery [1575]

Question 12

Who was an English surgeon that was influenced by Paré’s work?

Answer 12

William Clowes (surgeon to Elizabeth I)

Question 13

Who discovered blood circulation? When?

Answer 13

William Harvey
1616 → idea of blood circulation
Published ideas in 1628

Question 14

What book was punblished and by who on blood circultation?

Answer 14

De Motu Cordis [1628] William Harvey

Question 15

What could Harvey not explain?

Answer 15

• why blood in arteries was a different colour to blood in the veins
• how blood moved from arteries to veins

Question 16

What were reactions like to Harvey’s discovery of circulation?

Answer 16

• dislike of Harvey
• Jean Riolan called him a ‘circulator’ or slang for a quack
• not accepted as it went against Galen’s ideas
• 50 years until the University of Paris taught it to medical students

Question 17

What was Harvey’s discovery useful for?

Answer 17

Eventually:

• blood tests
• blood transfusions (good link to saline solution and diiscoveries in WW1)
• heart transplants

Question 18

What treatments were available to the ordinary people during the Renaissance? Give an example of more common knowledge

Answer 18

• barber surgeons
• apothecaries
• wise women
• quacks
• herbology- Nicholas Culpepper’s The Complete Herbal [1653]

Question 19

What were key treatments still used in the Renaissance (give example)

Answer 19

Blood letting as done on Charles II

Question 20

What was different about Culpepper?

Answer 20

• strongly against bloodletting and purging

Question 21

When was the Great Plague?

Answer 21

1665

Question 22

How did doctors deal with the Great Plague?

Answer 22

Continued…

• believing in miasma, punishment from God and planets
• believeing in unbalance of 4 humours
• blood letting
• rubbing defethered chickens on buboes
• fasting and praying
• removing animals from city

Changed:

• new ideas of CONTAGION, the plague could be passed from person to person
• plague victims were quarentined with a red cross on their door
• bodies of the dead were buried at night
• examiners went to parishes to point out infected bodies
• people washed money with vinegar
• home owners were ordered to sweep streets by their homes
• trade with infected towns was stopped
• border with Scotland was closed

Question 23

Who were two Renaissance herbologists and what did they do differently?

Answer 23

Lady Johanna St. John- only distributed remedies that were effective and paid attention to symptoms
Nicholas Culpepper- treated people for free, listened to patients in person rather than examining their urine and was against bloodletting

Question 24

How did the Great Plague end?

Answer 24

• colder and the bacteria died out
• the Great Fire of London → bigger streets

Question 25

What caused a change in how hospitals were built?

Answer 25

Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monestaries meant many catholic run hospitals were shut down

Question 26

When did hospitals start to be built on medical ideas and curing patients than caring for them?

Answer 26

18th century (1700s) e.g. Guy’s Hospital [1724]

Question 27

Give an example of a specialist hospital created in the 18th century

Answer 27

St Luke’s Hospital for the mentally ill
Lock’s Hospital for sexually transmitted disease
Foundling Hospital [1741] for children

Question 28

What’s an example of changing views by public → improvement in public health initiatives

Answer 28

Thomas Coram’s funding of the Foundling Hospital [1741] for children

Question 29

Who was the English anatomist in the Renaissance?

Answer 29

John Hunter

• wrote multiple books
• gathered specimens of over 3000 stuffed or dried animals
• skeleton of an Irish Giant 7 feet, 7 inches tall

Question 30

Who were key figures in the Renaissance?

Answer 30

• Andres Vesalius
• Paré
• William Harvey
• John Hunter
• Nicholas Culpepper