History of medicine: Renaissance Flashcards
What were supernatural ideas about the causes of disease?
The wider population still believed that illness was caused by God punishing humans for their sin or for their lack of cleanliness
Many people still believed illness was related to astrology
This was not believed by scientists at the time however
What were rational ideas about the causes of disease that continued?
Belief in miasma
Belief in the 4 Humours (mainly believed by the wider population and not by the scientific community)
What were new ideas about the causes of disease?
1526 - Paracelsus theorised disease was caused by problems with chemicals in the body
1546 - Fracastoro wrote On Contagion, which suggested diseaese came from seeds in the air and was contagious
1648 - Van Helmont claimed digestion happened because of stomach acid not the 4 Humours
1676 - Thomas Sydenham wrote Observations Medicae which theorised disease was separate from the patient and that diseases came in families
1683 - Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered animalcules
What caused an influx of new ideas compared to medieval times?
The power of the Catholic Church decreased mainly due to the rise of protestantism, and the Church of England being set up in England
This meant that they had much less control over new ideas and couldn’t stop people from theorising like they could in medieval times
Additionally, there was a wave of people becoming more curious as to how things worked which fuelled all this speculation around disease
What was a continuity in approaches to treatment from medieval times?
Bleeding, sweating and purging were all used to “rebalance the 4 Humours”
Herbal remedies remained popular and people began to think more deeply about certain remedies that might help certain diseases
What were changes in approaches to treatment?
The new method of transference - people believed that if you rubbed an object with what was bothering you (like a wart) it would transfer to the object
Herbal remedies got more exotic because of England’s global exploration/imperialism (coffee, cinchona bark)
People began experimenting with chemicals
What was a continuity in approaches to preventions from medieval times?
People still practiced avoidance by never having too much of anything and having things in moderation
People still followed the Regimen Sanitatus, however by the end of the century people tended to just move away from dirty areas
People still had hunches about disease being contagious so stayed away from people with disease if they could
What were changes to approaches to prevention?
Bathing became less popular because people thought you got syphillis from bathing
More steps were taken to purify the air and home owners were fined if they didn’t keep the street outside their house clean
Why was Paracelsus important?
He theorised disease was caused by problems with chemicals in the body
He also argued that cures needed to be developed that could attack disease and experimetned with early chemical cures
What were exact examples of herbal treatment?
Yellow herbs such as saffron to treat jaundice
Drinking red wine and wearing red clothes to cure small pox
Vervain to expel stomach worms and keep the liver healthy
Cinchona bark from Peru to treat malaria
People experimented with the new arrival of coffee
What were exact examples of new methods of treatment?
Medical chemistry in the 17th Century
The Pharmacopoeia Londinensis published in 1618 included details on 122 chemical treatments
Antimony Potassium Tartrate was said to have become popular after apparently curing Louis XIV of Typhoid fever
How did hospitals change in this time?
In 1536 most monasteris were destroyed due to Henry VIII setting up the Church of England
Pest houses began to appear where people with certain contagious diseases though they were poor
Some free charity-funded hospitals were set up but it wasn’t until the 1700s that the number of hospitals got back to previous levels
When hospitals did re-appear, they were run by physicians focused on treating the sick rather than by religion
How were people cared for in this time?
Other than the changes to hospitals, thinks remained largley the same
Physicians were still used, as were apothecaries, barber surgeons and care in the home
How did physicians change?
They received more training, and were often contracted to hospitals where they would visit patients
Now they would pescribe cures, not just diagnose patients like they did in medieval times
How did apothecaries change?
They became more professional and were organised into guild systems
This meant that you would first have to be an apprentice and learn to be a master of the craft
New ingredients were available
