Mediaeval To Renaissance Medicine Flashcards
What did mediaeval Christians think was gods role in healing?
- God cares for the body as well as the soul
- Sickness was a punishment for sins, or a trial of faith
- Recovery as evidence of gods care
- Work of caring and healing is godly work
What did mediaeval Christian’s think was the physicians role?
- Provide advice and counsel (do not work with their hands)
What did charity mean to mediaeval Christian’s?
- Caring for the sick and the poor
- giving out alms such as money and food
- Acts of mercy and love
How was charity expressed in the work of hospitals?
- Caring for the poor and sick
- infirmaries for travellers
- monks and sisters cared for people
What were the main orders of medical practitioner during the high Middle Ages?
What did mediaeval and renaissance physicians think of the ancient medical writers?
How did the ancient medical writers influence the way that medicine was taught?
Why did anatomy become such an important part of medicine during the renaissance?
- A source of new techniques and ways of seeing
- anatomical investigation intended to improve, not reject, the theoretical framework of the ancients
What was the impacts of the Black Death?
-economical
-epidemiological
-humanistic
-population
Economical - wages improved, land ownership redistributed
Epidemiological - frequent outbreaks in the decades to follow
Humanistic - catalysing the erosion of the clerical and royal power
Population - 25% of the European population died and life span shrunk to 20 years old
How does modern science reinterpret the meaning of the Black Death?
Why did the romans have a decline of power?
- roman world threatened
- new roman capital at Constantinople (relocated)
- empire splits (western Latin speaking- capital Rome, eastern Greek speaking)
- western administrations collapses
(300-500 CE)
When did Christianity develop?
Late antiquity and Middle Ages
How did Christianity / the church affect the mediaeval world?
- Christianity spreads quickly and religious governments are made
- Became official religion of the Roman and Byzantine empires
What happened to the church after Rome’s collapse?
Church persists as an institution of power, government and culture
What was the mediaeval Christian worldview?
- all aspects of daily life seen through the prism of faith meaning the world is full of religious meaning
- the purpose of life was to prepare for salvation (could happen anytime, body and soul will be resurrected)
- god constantly present and active in the world
What do mediaeval Christian’s believe about medicine and gods role?
- god cares for the body as well as the soul
- Jesus performed healing miracles
- physical sickness and cure have moral and religous meanings
- sickness is a punishment for sins, or a trial of faith
- the work of caring and healing is godly work
What happened to medicine when the economy collapsed in the west?
- Medicine ceased to exist as a distinct occupation
- some isolated Latin versions of Greek medical knowledge preserved in monastery libraries, especially those with practical knowledge
- monks care for each other + infirmaries
What happened to medicine in the east?
- Less of a decline than the west
- Some individuals still practise as physicians
- Copies of classical Greek texts still survive
- Texts become corrupt and simplified
- Little theoretical work, just simple practical knowledge
What did the mediaeval isamic world do with medicine?
- translated many texts from Greek to Arabic
- added to these texts
- wrote books, topics included diet, hygiene, anatomy, physiology diagnosis, therapeutics and surgery
(From 700 CE)
What happened to medical education in Western Europe in 800-1200 CE?
- increasing political stability in Western Europe
- growth of wealth and trade
Differentiation of social roles, including medical practitioners - universities established
- passing established knowledge
What did mediaeval surgeons do?
physical (manual) care of the body:
- barbering
- pulling teeth
- bandaging
- setting bones
- blood letting
How were surgeons seen / social status / education?
-tradesman
-learn through apprenticeship
-employed in military
What are apothecaries?
- people who prepare and dispense medicines
-tradesman not gentleman
-train by apprenticeship
When was the first recorded public dissection of a human? By who?
By Mondino de’ Liuzzi at the university of Bologna in 1315CE
How was the mediaeval anatomy done?
- often used bodies of executed criminals
- guided by the book
- conducted by a surgeon
Why was mediaeval anatomy carried out (medical reasons)?
- NOT intended to generate new knowledge of the body
- Help students learn and memorise medical theory
- connected to practises of blood letting
Why was mediaeval anatomy carried out (religous reasons)?
- performed in public, not just for students
- often used bodies of criminals
- reminder that the body is gods work - a theatre of morality and judgement, both human and divine
What did people think of ancient knowledge during the renaissance?
- knowledge is corrupt
- dissatisfied with political and cultural disorder
- realised that the ancient medical knowledge was not perfect - open to improvement
What did renaissance artists try to do?
- capture the perfection of classical representation (realism)
- understand how the body is ideally constructed
- source of new techniques and ways of seeing
(Da Vinci)
What did Berengario da capri do?
- professor of anatomy at Bologna
- conducts private dissections to improve medical knowledge
- emulates Galens anatomical enquiries
- introduces a more critical style of teaching
What did Andreas Vesalius do? (1514-1564)
- lecturer in surgery and anatomy in Padua
- excessive dissections which lead him to criticise Galen
- published De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543) a medical text
What is the meaning of Caritas?
Gods love for his creation and Christian’s love for their fellows
-includes acts of generosity, mercy and caring
-expected from all Christian’s
What is the meaning of infirmity?
Care of the body and the soul go together - infirmity as weakness of the body and soul
-religious duty of monks and priests (spiritual care)
-extends to care of the body
What happened in an infirmary (hospital)?
- Monks cared for sick brothers
- Cathedrals and shrines provide lodgings
- Support and hospitality to people who are travelling on pilgrimages
What was St Basils hospital specifically made for?
People that were travelling
What came from the period of stability from 1000CE?
- growth of trade and expansion of cities
- growth of wealth (personal and institutional)
- some money went to charity
- the church begins to establish hospitals for the poor and sick providing care for local communities
What did an infirmary look like?
- beds around the edges
- caring from sisters
- hospital shrine at the front, place to prey
How did the expansion of hospitals occur?
-wealthy individuals expressed their Christian beliefs through donations to hospitals
- governments begin to fund hospitals
- hospitals invest in trade
- providing insurance (eg wives signing over money)
How much of the European population died from the black death?
25%
What was the economic impact of the Black Death?
Wages improved, land ownership redistributed
What was the epidemiological impact of the Black Death?
Frequent outbreaks in the decades to follow
What was the humanistic effect of the Black Death?
Catalysing the erosion of clerical and royal power
What was Boccaccio’s descriptions of the Black Death?
- No remedy, no treatment, no cure
What happened to physicians during the Black Death?
- No physician knew how to cure it
- physician numbers increased during this time as more people wanted to make money of ‘treating’ the infected
- decreased the validity of physicians
How did people think to prevent the plague?
To restore balance and to purify the body against the hot and putrid air
(Ride of perfume at this time - clean air meant you would not get ill)
How was the Black Death treated?
- praying, diets, drinking gold mixed with alcohol
- surgeons did procedures such as lancing the bubo, blood letting and cupping
(Accelerated the death)
What happened to folks and midwives during the Black Death?
Became more popular due to immediate engagement
How did Bocaccio describe the contagion of the plague?
-plague was spreading in s sweeping manner (not random)
-visits house to house
-assume that seeing or smelling an infected person could spread the infection
What was Bocaccio’s account of the plague?
- divine punishment and the absolute human incapacity
- descriptions of new diseases with iconic symptoms
- distrust in the medical profession
- breakdown of laws, morals and religous rites
What were the consequences of the Black Death?
- death of family, friends, monarchs and priests causing the stability of social hierarchies to be impacted
-redistribution of land and houses, payments and duties on unprecedented scale - migration and exchange between rural and urban folk
- in England: increasing weakness of landlords, accelerated decline of feudalism
What happened to the Jewish community after the Black Death?
- waves of persecution
- riots against Jews to restore others authority
Why did people mortify their own flesh?
- only by mortification of ones own flesh will sins from the Black Death be redeemed
-church couldn’t provide safety from the plague
What caused abandonment after the black plague? What did this cause?
- fear of human contact
- sudden disappearance of care and affection from loved ones and trusted professionals
- caused the first wave of feelings of isolation and abandonment
What was the board of health? What did they do?
- coordination for plague measures
-removing sick to isolation houses or banning expel from leaving their homes
-Venetian authorities closed churches during the plague
What was the regulation of stench in England?
- key duties of civic government
- birth of strict regulation for butchers (dangers of contamination and contagion became closely related with unregulated butchery)
- sight of waste was also considered a to health
What did quarantine involve?
- detention for incoming vessels (isolation) for 30 days, increased to 40
- military barricades around city to prevent the uncontrolled movement of people and goods
