Renaissance c1500-1750 Flashcards
When was The Great Plague?
1665
When was The Great Fire of London?
1666
During The Great Plague, how many people died?
100,000
What were the orders of the Lord Mayor concerning The Great Plague?
- Examiners
- Searchers
- Isolation of the sick
- Burial of the dead before sun rise arms after sun down, 6ft under
- Red Cross and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’
- Clean streets
- No hogs, dogs, cats
What was the understanding of disease in the Renaissance period?
- Four Humours Theory still used
- Closed theatres, stray animals killed, burned barrels of tar in the streets, mass burial of the dead, Red Cross, fasting, prayer
- People believed they could be cured of TB by the Kings touch (Divine right of kings)
What did Vesalius do?
- Wrote ‘Fabric of the human body’ which included illustrations by Titian
- Human dissection
- Public dissection to generate public interest, not just medical students
What were the effects of Vesalius’ work?
- Corrects Galen’s mistakes
- Creates a deeper understanding of the human body but not disease
- Dissection becomes a greater part of training
- Church influence on training decreases
What book did Harvey publish?
‘An anatomical account of the motion of the heart and blood’
When was Harvey’s book published?
1628
What was Harvey’s book about?
It described how the blood circulates around the body by the heart which disproved Galen’s ideas
How did Harvey prove that the heart acts as a pump, pumping blood around the body?
- Human dissection
- Dissection of live, cold-blooded animals
- Tried to pump liquid past the valves in the veins but he could not. This proved the veins carried blood, not blood and air as Galen said.
What were the impacts of Harvey’s discovery?
- Laid the groundwork for the future investigation of the blood and physiology
- Surgery developed
How did Harvey manage to do his work?
- Repeated experiments
- Printing press
- Well educated
- People began to question old ideas
How did the medical ideas or beliefs during the Renaissance hold back the progression of treatment?
- Some herbal remedies worked and were passed down
- Church controlled education and medical training and discouraged dissection
- People were reluctant to change
- Doctors were expensive
- Galen’s work was used as a basis for medical training
How did scientific advances help the progression of treatment?
- Vesalius used dissection to map out the anatomy of the body
- Harvey discovered the heart worked like a pump
- University and medical schools founded
