Medical Renaissance is the term often applied to the period, around 1400 to 1750, of major progress in medical knowledge and a renewed interest in the ancient ideas of the Greeks and Romans.[1] This movement was made possible by the Reformation of the Church, a decline in Conservatism, the work of individuals such as Andreas Vesalius & William Harvey and technological advances. All of these took place during the Renaissance period. [2]
Despite the medical advances made during this period, it would take many hundreds of years before the effects of the progress would be felt, even by the people highest in the social ranks; Charles II of England died at the age of 55, in 1685, of a stroke, despite having some of the most respected and educated doctors in the country treating him. They tried methods such as bleeding, laxatives and giving him a potion containing a bezoar stone, despite these methods having been proved ineffective by Ambroise Paré and having been made inferior by other treatments that were developed during this time.[3]
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Without several interlinking factors, the progress made during the Medical Renaissance towards medical understanding could not have been possible.[4][5]
One of the most important inventions of the Renaissance was the Printing Press, it was a major part of this era;[6] in the Middle Ages books were written by hand, by monks and scholars, and therefore were few in number and very precious, very few left the monasteries where they were kept. The Printing Press lead to the creation of thousands of copies of books, containing no mistakes, and had a dramatic impact on Medicine during this time.[7] This meant that the books containing these new ideas could be spread quickly, and would not contain any mistakes. They also were able to contain detailed drawings made by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, which helped to accompany the text and for the first time doctors had detailed, accurate drawings of the human body.
The Microscope was another very important invention which occurred during the Renaissance and would continue to be improved upon until modern times, though the writings of Seneca and Pliny the Elder mention 'magnifying glasses' as far back as the first century A.D.[8]. In the 17th Century, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek made microscopes which were able to magnify things up to 270 times, and was able to see micro-organisms; nobody suggested however that these were the cause of disease and for hundreds of years no progress would be made upon the matter. The microscope would later be used by both Pasteur and Koch, to view micro-organisms, and to help them to make vital discoveries.
The Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church during this time was itself due to many things, including the perception of corruption within the Church.[citation needed] The ideas of Galen, a Greek physician of the 2nd century AD, were enforced and adopted by the Church; Galen was a Monotheist and his ideas did not question any of the Church's, additionally his ideas had been the accepted wisdom of the medical world for over a thousand years; anyone who went against these ideas were either punished or suppressed, and that was unlikely considering that the Church controlled the teachings that went on inside the medical profession and universities. Individuals such as Vesalius (see below) found it very difficult to overcome such opposition and were forced to dissect human subjects in secret, because it was banned. However once they began investigating they found things which challenged Galen's theories on the human body,[9] because Galen had only been able to dissect animals. In 1531 Johannes Guinter published a Latin translation of 'On Anatomical Procedures', written by Galen, in which he stressed the need to dissect human bodies, bringing to light a previously unknown approval of human dissection. This discovery would prove vital in the lifting of the ban on human dissections. Thanks to the recent invention of the printing press (see above), news of the discoveries made by invididuals such as Vesalius was impossible for the Church to stop spreading, having been severely weakened by the Reformation.
Main article William Harvey
William Harvey was an English medical doctor/physician, who is credited as the first person in the Western world to describe in exact detail the circulation of blood around the body.[10] The idea that blood is re-used and carried round the body challenged Galen's theory that blood was made in the liver.[11]
Main article Andreas Vesalius
Vesalius was a Flemish-born anatomist whose dissections of the human body helped to correct the misconceptions made in Ancient Times, particularly by Galen, who (for religious reasons) had been able only to study animals such as dogs.[12] Dissection of human bodies was still frowned upon in Vesalius' time (1514-64), as it had been for many hundreds of years, and Vesalius was forced to take the bodies of executed prisoners in secret. He wrote many books on anatomy from his observations, most notably 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica', which contained detailed drawings of the human body by artist Leonardo Da Vinci.[13]
Main article Ambroise Paré Paré was a French Surgeon, anatomist and inventor of many surgical instruments. Through 1533-36 he was a military surgeon during the French campaigns in Italy. It was here that, having run out of boiling oil, which was the accepted way of treating firearm wounds, Paré turned to an ancient roman remedy of turpentine, egg yolk and oil of roses. He applied it to the wounds and found that it relieved pain and sealed the wound effectively. As well as this breakthrough Paré also introduced the ligatures of arteries; silk threads would be used to tie up the arteries of amputated limbs to try and stop the bleeding, unfortunately, as antiseptics had not yet been invented this method lead to an increase fatality rate and was quickly abandoned by medical professionals of the time.
Additionally, Paré set up a school for midwives in Paris and designed artificial limbs.[14]
This had a major impact on the medical community as it disproved Galen's theory of the four humors, something that had been previously believed for centuries.
Renaissance medicine is the term used for the development of medicine at the time of the Renaissance in Europe. Scientists began to study the body and treat its diseases. One scientist said that the body is mostly chemicals, so it should be healed by chemicals.[1] Other scientists studied anatomy. By learning the positions of bones, muscles, and organs, they were able to give better treatment. The Englishman William Harvey discovered that blood is pumped by the heart, travels through the body in blood vessels, and returns back to the heart in the circulatory system. This made medical research in the 1600s much better and easy to understand. [2]
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In the renaissance, a very important theory in medicine was a system called Four humours or Four temperaments. This theory was based on earlier works, and influenced medical development until the 19th century. According to the theory, the body was filled with four different substances, called humours. When a person is healthy, these substances are in balance. When there is an imbalance between the humours, the person will be sick. The sickness can be cured by bringing the four humours back to balance. The four substances are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Avicenna still supported that theory, but refined it in many ways.
Rhazes (865–925) was the first physician to show that the theory of four humors was wrong, in his Doubts about Galen. He carried out an experiment which would upset this system: He inserted a liquid with a different temperature into the body. This would result in an increase or decrease of bodily heat, which resembled the temperature of that particular fluid. Rhazes noted that a warm drink would heat up the body to a degree much higher than its own natural temperature, The drink would therefore trigger a response from the body, rather than transferring only its own warmth or coldness to it.[3] Avenzoar (1091–1161) carried out an experimental dissection and autopsy to prove that the skin disease scabies was caused by a parasite. This discovery upset the theory of humorism. The removal of the parasite from the patient's body did not involve purging, bloodletting, or any other traditional treatments associated with the four humors.[4] Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) then discredited the theory of four humors after his discovery of pulmonary circulation[5] and coronary circulation.[6]
s use antivenin, not snails, to cure snake bites.]]
Because there were only a few ways of studying how the body worked, early doctors did not know how to cure sickness. When a plague started, they could not really know what to do for their patients except making them a little less painful. One of their mistakes was that they thought the air carried the disease (which it sometimes did), or that sickness was caused by "flying venom": so, they covered their mouths or burned aromatic leaves (leaves that smelled good), but did not wash their hands after seeing a sick friend or family member.[1]When William Harvey practiced medicine in 1618, only a few of his friends were trying to find out how the body worked, and only a few doctors believed Harvey when he said that the blood was pumped by the heart. Most people thought he was a quack (fake or bad doctor). Slowly they began to see his findings were real.
In the 17th century, Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke developed the light microscope. Using such a microscope, Leeuwenhoek was the first to see bacteria, in 1676.[7] He called them "animalcules" and published his observations in a series of letters to the Royal Society.[8][9][10] The name bacterium was introduced much later, by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg in 1838.[11]
However, there were still lots of strange "cures". For instance, in his medical book Rosa Angelica, John Gadesen wrote how he treated smallpox in the son of Edward II by putting him in a red room because "red cures red". It was thought by many people that red diseases could be cured by having the patient look at the color red. [1]
Also, doctors said that "if an adder (snake) strike (bite) a man, wash a black snail in holy water, and give to the sick to drink." Today, of course, doctors do not use this cure.
Some cures not only didn't work, they could be dangerous to the patient. For instance, when someone was sick, doctors said that bad blood must be removed. To remove the bad blood, the doctor attached leeches to the patient (leeches are animals that suck blood). When the leech was full, the job was finished. But when somebody was sick, taking away their blood could make them very weak - they could even die.[1] As science and medicine grew better, leeching was stopped until recently, when doctors began sometimes using leeches on patients who had fingers or hands that were cut off reattached. One of the greatest pains in reattachment is just after surgery, when the blood pools under the skin and is very painful. Doctors have found out that using leeches to drink the excess blood helps to make the pain smaller.[1]
Some cures really worked, though. Sometimes wounds that today we would use stitches were held together using beetles that had pincers. The edges of the wound were pinched together by a big, angry beetle. When the pincers were pinching it firmly together, the beetle head would be cut off. Spider webs were used to help wounds clot (blood come together).[1] Doctors are still looking into other cures that were used in the Renaissance to see if they can help today's medicine.
   | Renaissance Medicine, From the Hutchinson Encyclopedia of World History - Renaissance - Encyclopedia Britanica - e - History.co.uk |
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