The Renaissance

Question 0

In what century were the original books written by Galen and Hippocrates rediscovered?

Answer 0

The fifteenth century

Question 1

Why were certain details (e.g. The fact that Galen’s ideas should be checked through human dissection) left out when scholars translated the ancients’ books?

Answer 1

Only religious scholars were allowed to see and translate them, and if they saw something that they did not believe in, they would simply not copy that part.

Question 2

Why were people able to spend more time and money on education?

Answer 2

People had more spare time and more spare money.
After the Black Death, many of the survivors were better off because employers had to pay higher wages to attract workers.

Question 3

How did artists like Leonardo da Vinci contribute to renaissance medicine?

Answer 3

They began to draw from nature on purpose, copying what they saw.
This included studying the detail of the human body, which improved knowledge of the anatomy.

Question 4

Why did Renaissance people make new translations of Galen?

Answer 4

To make sure the translations made in the Middle Ages were right.
They published new editions of Greek and roman books, including nearly 600 editions of Galen’s books.

Question 5

What exactly was reborn during the renaissance?

Answer 5

The desire to enquire. 
The Greeks and Romans attitudes of observation and experimentation- NOT THEIR FACTS. 
Original works were retranslated. 
Observation of nature. 
Challenging and suggestion of ideas.

Question 6

Who was Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)?

Answer 6

A professor of surgery in Padua, Italy.

His father was a doctor and he himself studied medicine in both Paris and Padua.

Question 7

What was believed about the anatomy prior to the renaissance?

Answer 7

Doctors believed Galen had given a fully correct description of the anatomy.
Dissection was carried out to show Galen was right, not to check or challenge him, even though Galen had said it was important to learn by dissecting human bodies.

Question 8

What factors helped Vesalius?

Answer 8

Technology (printing press)
Individual genius (inventive)
Art (artists' interest in dissection)
Enquiry attitudes.

Question 9

What factors hindered Vesalius

Answer 9

Conservative attitudes

No knowledge of germs.

Question 10

What were Vesalius’ short term achievements?

Answer 10

The Fabric of the Human Body was the first highly illustrated book on anatomy.
Human jaw bone is made from one bone, not two.
Breastbone has three parts, not Galen’s seven.
Blood does not flow into the heart through invisible holes in the septum.

Question 11

What long term impact did Vesalius’ discoveries have?

Answer 11

Insistence on enquiry began to change attitudes and others followed his example.
Doctors realised there was more to be learned.
Accurate knowledge of anatomy was vital to building up medical knowledge.
His book spread knowledge AND his attitude, showing others the way forward.

Question 12

What was Vesalius’ book called (1543)?

Answer 12

The Fabric of the Human Body

Question 13

What were the limitations to Vesalius’ discoveries?

Answer 13

Many doctors stuck to Galen’s ideas anyway.

No one lived any longer as a result of his discoveries.

Question 14

Who was William Harvey (1578-1657)?

Answer 14

He studied medicine in Cambridge and Padua and worked as a doctor in London. He became the doctor to King Charles I.

Question 15

What had been believed about the blood prior to the renaissance?

Answer 15

Galen taught that blood was manufactured in the liver and then used up like petrol in the body.
Galen taught that blood passed though invisible holes in the septum. Ibn-al-Nafis and Vesalius challenged this but didn’t know how.
Realdo columbo said that blood moved along veins and arteries and Fabricus (Harvey’s tutor at Padua) proved that there are valves in veins).

Question 16

What factors helped Harvey to make his discoveries?

Answer 16

Technology (mechanical water pumps)
Indiviudal genius (thorough)
Communications (used work of earlier doctors).

Question 17

What factors hindered William Harvey?

Answer 17

Attitudes- some ignored him.

Lack of technology (e.g. Microscope)

Question 18

What were Harvey’s short term medical achievements?

Answer 18

Proved that the heart pumps blood.
Proved the body is a one way system for the blood.
Proved that the same amount of blood is pumped around the body by the heart (weighed the volume).

Question 19

What long term impact did Harvey’s discoveries have on medicine?

Answer 19

They laid the groundwork for future investigation of the blood and physiology.
Many aspects of medicine depend on understating the circulatory system. Surgery could not envelop until after this.
Harvey proved that Vesalius was right about the importance of dissection. He wrote “I prefer to learn and teach anatomy not from books but from dissection”.

Question 20

What was William Harvey’s book called?

Answer 20

An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood

Question 21

What were the limitations to Harvey’s discoveries?

Answer 21

Still much more to discover about the blood (e.g. Blood groups).
His discovery was only gradually accepted- took 50 years for his ideas to be taught over Galen’s at a university in Paris.
Harvey’s discovery did not actually benefit anyone’s health.

Question 22

Who was Ambroise Paré (1510-1590)?

Answer 22

Learned surgery as an apprentice to his brother, the. Worked at the Royal Hospital in Paris. He’s spent 20 years as an army surgeon and then a surgeon to kings of France.

Question 23

What was the name of Paré’s book about his life story?

Answer 23

The Apology and Treatise of Ambroise Paré.

He also wrote ‘Works on Surgery’.

Question 24

What methods were commonly used in surgery leading up to the renaissance?

Answer 24

War had helped surgeons make minor improvements to techniques but no major breakthroughs.
Gunpowder in gunshot wounds was thought to be poisonous so boiling oil was poured into them, which was extremely painful.
Painful cauterisation was used to close wounds and amputations.

Question 25

What factors helped Paré?

Answer 25

Individual genius (experimentation and public displays)
Chance (ran out of oil)
War
Technology (printing)

Question 26

How did Paré contribute to medicine in the short term?

Answer 26

Treated gunshot wounds with his own mixture of egg yolks, oil of roses and turpentine (an old Roman method).
Used ligatures (silk threads tied around blood vessels) to stop bleeding instead of cauterisation. 
He designed and arranged the making of false limbs for wounded soldiers, including drawings in his books so ideas could spread.

Question 27

How did Paré contribute to medicine in the long term?

Answer 27

His work became widely known through his books, which were written in french and translated into other languages, so they could be read by more surgeons.
He encouraged surgeons to think for themselves and try new methods, showing that improvements were possible.
Ligatures did stop bleeding.

Question 28

What were the limitations to Paré’s contributions?

Answer 28

Stopping bleeding with ligatures was slow compared to cauterisation, especially on a battlefield.
Ligatures were dangerous and could carry infection feel into wounds causing death (only effective when antiseptics developed).
Paré’s discoveries were still small scale. Still no effective anaesthetics, antiseptics or knowledge about blood groups or fast ways of stopping bleeding.

Question 29

How did the role of doctors begin o change during the renaissance?

Answer 29

Doctors were trained at universities around Europe (e.g. Padua).
They regarded themselves as professional and expert and tried to improve their methods by learning from others and scientific method.
They tried to protect their reputation by preventing untrained people from practising as doctors.

Question 30

What was set up in the 16th century to register and license doctors and prevented unqualified people from practising?

Answer 30

The Royal College of Physicians (in England)

Question 31

Why were all professional doctors men?

Answer 31

Women could not train as doctors or go to universities.

Question 32

How did the role of women decline during the renaissance?

Answer 32

WISE WOMEN- many were accused of being witches in the witchhunt, which discouraged women from offering medical care beyond their families.
MALE DOCTORS BECAME MORE INVOLVED IN CHILDBIRTH- it became trendy for rich women to have a professional doctor attend their birth rather than a traditional midwife (attitudes).
FORCEPS- when childbirth became more ‘scientific’, only male doctors could use these methods, such as forceps.

Question 33

What other medical care was available for people aside from professional doctors and wise women?

Answer 33

Apothecaries (made/sold medicines, gave advice).
Barber surgeons (basic operations, e.g. Paré).
Quacks (untrained people who sold medicines).

Question 34

What word is ‘quack’ short for?

Answer 34

Quacksalver, meaning a person who falsely claims to possess medical or other skills.

Question 35

In what ways were quack doctors like fairground traders?

Answer 35

They took their supposed ‘miracle cures’ from town to town.
They attracted customers to their stall with music and a clown or monkey and shouting.
They often claimed to have travelled from other countries and brought back their medicine.

Question 36

Why did trained doctors begin to disapprove of quacks in the 1700s?

Answer 36

• Doctors thought quacks were not very good at being doctors- their remedies were often useless and sometimes fatal.
• Quacks took business away from professional doctors, which meant that they lost money.
• Quacks undermined the reputation of the while medical profession-patients did not know how to tell a trained doctor from an untrained one.

Question 37

Why did people buy their medicines if a quack’s reputation was so bad?

Answer 37

Trained doctors were very expensive, and their remedies were cheaper.
People did not understand the cause of disease, so did not know whether a pill or potion would be any good.
Some would desperately try almost anything in the hope that they would be cured from an illness.

Question 38

When was there a plague in the renaissance?

Answer 38

1665

Question 39

How did people deal with the plague?

Answer 39

• The mayor of London ordered watchmen to guard houses to make sure the sick and their families stayed shut up.
• House owners were ordered to sweep the streets outside their homes.
• Taverns and theatres were closed to stop plague spreading.
• No meetings of the Royal Society while there was plague.
• Balancing of the humours
• Quack and other herbal remedies (e.g. Rhubarb)
• Crosses on doors

Question 40

What did scientific method involve?

Answer 40

Conducting an experiment, collecting observations, then coming to a conclusion.

Question 41

How were natural, herbal treatments for disease able to develop?

Answer 41

The discovery of America by Columbus meant that new foods and medicines were brought back from the New World.

Question 42

What was the Bezoar Stone?

Answer 42

Bezoar is a stone that grows in the stomach of a goat found in the Middle East. It was thought to be an antidote to poison (the word is Persian, and means ‘counterpoison’).
The French surgeon-doctor Paré tested this in a crude and cruel scientific experiment. He gave poison to a condemned criminal, followed by bezoar, and then observed what happened: the criminal died.

Question 43

In what ways did people in the 17th century deal with plague better than those in the 14th century?

Answer 43

Examiners and searchers made sure that people who lived in infected houses were not allowed out.
Red crosses on doors of households. Victims of the plague were buried at least 6 feet deep.
People had to keep the street in front of their house clean.

(People in the 14th century thought that god was the cause, and so treatments developed from the fact that he was punishing them for their sins.)