Health and the people- The Renaissance Flashcards
When was the Renaissance?
Late 1400s
When was the printing press invented?
1451
What discoveries / inventions improved medicine in the Renaissance?
- 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
Who was the individual that revolutionised anatomical working in the Renaissance?
Andreas Vesalius
What book was published and by who during the Renaissance that revolutionised anatomy and dissections?
The Fabric of the Human Body [1543]- Andres Vesalius
How did Vesalius do things differently?
- 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
What text was used by barber surgeons in the Renaissance and who was it by?
Compendiosa- Andres Vesalius [1545]
What book did surgeons originally use to treat gunshot wounds in the Renaissance
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
What did Paré differ from standard practices?
- 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
By who was Paré inflenced?
Andreas Vesalius
What book did Paré publish?
Works on Surgery [1575]
Who was an English surgeon that was influenced by Paré’s work?
William Clowes (surgeon to Elizabeth I)
Who discovered blood circulation? When?
William Harvey
1616 → idea of blood circulation
Published ideas in 1628
What book was punblished and by who on blood circultation?
De Motu Cordis [1628] William Harvey
What could Harvey not explain?
- why blood in arteries was a different colour to blood in the veins
- how blood moved from arteries to veins
What were reactions like to Harvey’s discovery of circulation?
- 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
What was Harvey’s discovery useful for?
Eventually:
- blood tests
- blood transfusions (good link to saline solution and diiscoveries in WW1)
- heart transplants
What treatments were available to the ordinary people during the Renaissance? Give an example of more common knowledge
- barber surgeons
- apothecaries
- wise women
- quacks
- herbology- Nicholas Culpepper’s The Complete Herbal [1653]
What were key treatments still used in the Renaissance (give example)
Blood letting as done on Charles II
What was different about Culpepper?
- strongly against bloodletting and purging
When was the Great Plague?
1665
How did doctors deal with the Great Plague?
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
Who were two Renaissance herbologists and what did they do differently?
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
How did the Great Plague end?
- colder and the bacteria died out
- the Great Fire of London → bigger streets
