Renaissance Medicine Flashcards
What was the Renaissance?
The name given to the changes which started in northern Italy in the 14th Century, and spread throughout Europe over the next 200 years.
What does Renaissance mean?
Rebirth
How did the Renaissance start?
A close study of the classical texts
What did the Renaissance mean for medicine?
There was a greater interest in how the human body worked based on direct observation and dissection.
What did the Renaissance mean for science?
It was the start of modern science, free from magic and mysticism.
When was the Royal Society formed?
1660
Why was the Royal Society important?
It had patronage from King Charles II which gave it status.
Why was the development of science so important for medicine?
It was the means of removing superstition from medicine.
What was the concept of Renaissance man?
A well educated person should be proficient in both science and art.
Why was the concept of Renaissance man important?
Artist attended dissections, and produced brilliant illustrations for scientific subjects.
Who was Leonardo da Vinci?
Probably autistic, Italian, brilliant artist, but also a brilliant scientist and designer, designing such things as helicopters! One really cool guy… did I mention he was probably autistic?
What did the return to classical texts lead to in medicine?
The four humours, and treatment by opposites.
What did the Renaissance mean for the church?
People like Martin Luther wanted to get back to the bible, and enable everyone to read it themselves, so we get the start of the Protestant church. Religious authority was challenged and knowledge spread to more people.
How did people greet the new ideas of the Renaissance?
There was resistance.
Who was Galileo?
Famous scientist and genius, real name Galileo Galilei. Came up with the heliocentric universe. Really got up the church’s nose and was persecuted by the Inquisition in 1633. Probably autistic.
Who was Paracelsus?
Rejected the four humours. Burnt Galen’s book (1527) and called him a liar. Called Avicenna a kitchen-master. Lectured in German and let anyone attend, even barber-surgeons.
What was it like to live through the Renaissance?
It was a violent time, endless wars due to religious differences.
What problems were created by the wars?
The wars gobbled up resources, destroyed crops, trapped people in besieged towns. starvation, typhoid, plague, and sexually transmitted diseases killed more than the guns.
What problems were created by the people disabled by war?
They put intolerable pressure on the poor relief systems.
What happened to world communication in the Renaissance?
It improved enormously due to improved ships and navigation techniques. This spread disease, smallpox to America, cholera to Europe from the east.
What year was the Great Plague of London?
1665
What attempts were made to halt the spread of plague during the great plague?
Affected households were locked in, red cross on the door, with the words “Lord have mercy upon us”. Carts roamed the city with the cry “Bring out your dead”. Corpses buried in plague pits.
What do the attempts to halt the spread of disease during the great plague show us about people’s understanding of disease?
People obviously understood that illness was spread from affected people, but they did not understand germs.
Which job groups were most affected?
Priests, doctors, and apothecaries.
How did the Great Plague end?
The Great Fire of 1666 sterilised a large part of London, killing off the fleas and the bacteria.
Who introduced printing in Europe?
Johann Gutenberg in 1454
When did printing in Europe start?
1454
When did printing in England start?
1476
Who introduced the printing press to England?
William Caxton.
What effect did the printing press have?
Much easier to make multiple copies of a book. Less need to have ideas accepted before it was worth copying the book.
What was the effect of the printing press on the availability of Galen’s works?
More complete copies came from the East, were translated into Latin and printed.
When was Versalius born?
1514
When he studies anatomy, what was he not permitted to do?
Boil up bodies to get a skeleton
What did Versalius do to get his skeleton?
He stole a decayed body from a gibbet.
How did Versalius organise his dissections?
He did them himself, rather than using an assistant.
Why was Versalius important?
He wrote books based on his observations with accurate diagrams, and his worked pointed out some of Galen’s mistakes.
Who found out that blood goes to the other side of the heart via the lungs, 300 years after Ibn al-Nafis?
Colombo, the successor of Vesalius.
Who was Paré?
He was a barber-surgeon born in 1510
What was Paré’s job?
He worked for a public hospital, then became an army surgeon
What was the problem with the way amputations were done?
Limbs were sealed by using a red hot iron, which caused extreme pain for the patient. Paré invented a way of tying off vessels with threads.
What did Paré design?
Artificial legs.
What was the problem with the treatment of gunshot wounds?
It was believed that the bullets were poisoned by the gunpowder, so the hot iron, or boiling oil was used.
What was Paré’s way of treating gunshot wounds?
When he ran out of hot oil he used a cool salve and found those patients did better.
What job did Paré end up in?
Surgeon to the King of France
What was Paré’s King’s contribution to medicine?
He supported Paré’s ideas, gaining them some acceptance.
Who was William Harvey?
Born 1578, studied medicine and anatomy at Padua. Royal Physician to James I and Charles I.
What had Galen thought about the blood?
That it was consumed by the body.
Why did Harvey think that Galen’s ideas on blood had to be wrong?
Too much blood was being pumped by the heart, so it had to be going round.
What was the impact of Harvey’s discoveries on surgery?
Not much, as blood transfusions were not successful until the discovery of blood groups in 1900.
