The Medical Renaissance 1500-1700

Question 1

What was the Renaissance?
Who is a famous Renaissance painter?

Answer 1

“Rebirth” of the arts, sciences, and medicine
Leonardo da Vinci

Question 2

When was the College of Physicians set up?
What did this institution do?

Answer 2

1518
Studying more recent medical developments, making dissection commonplace, licences for doctors to mitigate treatment by quacks

Question 3

When was the dissolution of the monasteries?
Why was this bad?

Answer 3

1530’s
Many hospitals were run by monasteries so many shut down

Question 4

When did Peter Chamberlen invent the forceps?

Answer 4

1600’s

Question 5

Who did Vesalius perform dissections on?

Answer 5

Executed criminals

Question 6

What was Vesalius’ book called?
When was it published?

Answer 6

‘The Fabric of the Human Body’
1543

Question 7

Whose works did Vesalius challenge? How?
Why was this difficult at the time?

Answer 7

Galen’s - Vesalius had increasingly accurate diagrams of anatomy in his work, debunking Galenic ideas from dissecting mammals (human dissection was forbidden by the Church)
The church endorsed Galen’s work

Question 8

What book did Thomas Sydenham wrote?
How long was it used as a textbook?

Answer 8

‘Medical Observations’ 1676
200 years

Question 9

What did Thomas Sydenham do?
What two diseases did he differentiate between?

Answer 9

Taught doctors to gain practical experience and write down their observations, classified different illnesses by their symptoms
Measles and scarlet fever

Question 10

What were Galen’s incorrect ideas about blood?

Answer 10

‘Nutrition-carrying’ blood produced in the liver, ‘life-giving’ blood produced by the lungs, and both were consumed

Question 11

What did William Harvey discover?
What book did he write about this, and when was it published?

Answer 11

Double circulatory system
‘On the Motions of the Heart’ 1628

Question 12

Initially, why did Harvey’s ideas struggle to gain traction?

Answer 12

They debunked Galen’s ideas which were endorsed by the Church

Question 13

When was the printing press invented?
Why was it significant?

Answer 13

1470’s
Allowed books to be copied much easier - textbooks were more widely available so students could study in detail, and texts could be easily translated and distributed, strengthening international communication

Question 14

When was the Royal Society established?

Answer 14

1660

Question 15

Why was the Royal Society important?

Answer 15

It was paramount in spreading new scientific ideas and technology e.g. microscopes

Question 16

What was the Royal Society’s motto?
What did it mean?

Answer 16

“Nullius in verba”, meaning “take no one’s word for it”
Encouraged students to be sceptical and question archaic ideas

Question 17

Why was treatment still limited during the Renaissance?

Answer 17

Some doctors still used purging and bloodletting
Doctors were still expensive so many still turned to barber-surgeons, wise women, and apothecaries
Religion was still a believed cause of illness

Question 18

Which mental asylum opened during the Renaissance?
What were people’s attitudes towards this?

Answer 18

St Mary of Bethlehem’s
People would visit and watch the mentally ill for entertainment

Question 19

When did the Great Plague hit Britain?
What percentage of London’s population did it kill?

Answer 19

1665
20%

Question 20

What were some of the treatments for the Great Plague?

Answer 20

• Bloodletting/purging
• Sweet-smelling herbs due to the belief in the miasma theory
• Strapping a live chicken to swellings

Question 21

Local councils intervened to prevent the spread of the Great Plague. How was this different to the prevention of the Black Death (medieval)?

Answer 21

Councils did not introduce any real preventative methods for the Black Death

Question 22

What were some preventative measures against the Great Plague?

Answer 22

• Mass graves
• Victims of plague were quarantined, a red cross put on their door
• Cats and dogs killed by councils - they were believed to have carried the plague