Renaissance Medicine Flashcards
How did new inventions help medical progression?
Printing press meant that new ideas could be spread easier.
What did Pare do?
Promoted the use of ligatures, made prosthetic limbs for amputees, healed gunshot wounds, was a war surgeon.
How did Pare learn to heal gunshot wounds?
He was a war surgeon who traditionally poured boiling oil onto wounds. One day, he ran out and improvised with lotion (made of rose and egg whites etc.) which worked!
Did Pare have an impact?
Yes! His book were translated into French from Latin which allowed many barber surgeons to learn from him and improve their own practice ; earned him the title of ‘the most famous surgeon in Europe’.
What did Vesalius do?
He dissected human bodies (proved Galen wrong as he only dissected animals) and wrote ‘Fabric of the Human Body’ which contained beautifully illustrated drawing of the human body.
Did Vesalius have an impact?
Yes and no. Barber surgeons started to read and learn from his work and his discoveries were used as a basis for finding new treatments in the future. However, people at the time were reluctant to accept his ideas.
What did Harvey do?
Wrote book ‘De Motu Cordis’ which suggested that blood circulated around the body one way only. He was a doctor/surgeon to King Charles I. He also disproved Galen’s ideas that blood was made in the liver and ‘used up’.
Did Harvey have an impact?
Yes and no. He could not prove how or why blood circulated around the body and not many people accepted his ideas - took 50 years before his ideas were taught in University of Paris. However, thanks to Harvey, blood transfusions and heart transplants etc. are now available.
How did surgical knowledge improve?
John Hunter invented ground-breaking surgeries, other than amputations (e.g. cutting of a tumor). Royal Society attempted a blood transfusion based on Harvey’s work on blood circulation.
How did types of treatments improve?
Herbal remedies more common as people could read books on specific herbs. New treatments from abroad e.g. tobacco for the plague.
How did types of treatments stay the same?
Patients still being bled or ‘purged’ based on the Humours.
How did doctors training improve?
People starting to question superstitious treatments (suggests better training). Royal Society discussed new ideas and challenged Galen. John Hunter trained hundreds of doctors. Some hospital reading ideas from PHV and teaching them.
How did doctors training stay the same?
Most doctors still focused on teachings of Hippocrates and Galen.
What were quacks?
Unqualified salesmen who would sell ‘cure-alls’ that didn’t work. These pills could kill people or make them very ill.
When and where did the Great Plague happen?
In 1665 the outbreak swept across the whole of London.
What was the cause of the Great Plague?
Same as the Black Death! Fleas spread bacteria from rats to humans.
How many people died from the Great Plague?
100,000 people - 1/5 of London’s whole population.
What were some believed causes of the Great Plague and other diseases?
Punishment from God, astrology (alignment of stars and planets) and miasma.
How did authorities try to prevent the spread of the Great Plague?
Paying ‘women searchers’ to identify symptoms, quarantining plague victims by making them paint red crosses on their doors and burning bodies that were infected.
How did the Great Plague end?
Rats developed a greater resistance to fleas. Ended when Great Fire of London happened so they assumed that was what had finished it!
What were three features of a plague doctor?
Mask-nose cone filled with sweet-smelling herbs (miasma), amulet to protect from evil (superstition) and a long stick to avoid contact with patient.
How did people try to treat plague victims?
Using remedies made by women, apothecaries and quacks.
How did the Great Plague spread?
London was overcrowded so it easily spread from one person to another. Working-class slums were filthy so many people people contracted disease from rats living in waste.
How did the closing of monasteries impact the change of hospitals?
Independent hospitals funded by independent people forced to open - they no longer had to listen to the Church! They dismissed the ‘care not cure’ attitude and the idea that God punished people by making them ill; people took new scientific approaches to medicine.
