Renaissance Medicine– The What
1. Ideas about Disease
• T4H
• Bad air
• Religion
• The planets
2. Treatment, prevention and cures
• Purging, vomiting and blood letting
• Theory of opposites
• Bezoar stone a treatment for poison.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
2. Treatment, prevention and cures
• Scrofula cured by the King’s Touch
• Herbal treatments; rhubarb to purge bowels; honey to treat
infections; horseradish, white wine and orange juice to treat
scurvy; quinine for fevers.
3. Surgery
• Open wounds and amputations were closed by sealing them
with burning iron called a cautery.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
3. Surgery
• Gunpowder in wounds was thought to be poisonous so they
poured boiling oil into the wounds to kill the poison.
4. Anatomy
• Doctors knew about Greek and Roman discoveries.
• Dissection was being carried out to make new discoveries.
5. Public Health
• Poor standards continued from the Middle Ages.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
5. Public Health
• Town governments employed people and made laws to try to
keep the streets clean but often had little success.
• During the plague the mayor of London ordered watchmen to
guard houses to make sure the sick stayed shut up, house
owners were ordered to sweep the streets outside their
homes, taverns and theatres were closed to stop plague
spreading.
• The government ordered days of public prayer and fasting to
beg God to be merciful.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
6. Healers
• Mothers and family members – treated most illnesses,
wealthy ladies often provided care for local families. Herbal
books were more widely used. Women also worked as
midwives but they could not attend university.
• Physicians – trained at University by reading the works of
Greek, Roman and Arab writers. They studied discoveries by
Vesalius and Harvey but new ideas were rarely accepted
straight away. They also advised their clients on how to stay
healthy through a good diet and exercise.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
6. Healers
• Vesalius – used dissection and via the printing press and
improved drawings to show that Galen was wrong: the
human jaw is made from one bone, not two; the breast bone
has three parts, not seven; blood does not flow into the heart
through invisible holes. His insistence on enquiry began to
change attitudes and proved that Galen did not know
everything. He was only gradually accepted and it didn’t
make anyone better.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
6. Healers
• Pare – replaced the use of boiling oil with egg yolks, rose oil
and turpentine. He used ligatures to stop bleeding. He
designed and arranged the building of false limbs for
wounded soldiers. As an army surgeon he had plenty of
practice but only tried his new remedy by chance when he
ran out of boiling oil. But stopping bleeding with ligatures
was slow and the thread could carry infection into a wound.
His discoveries were small scale but they were a step in the
right direction.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
6. Healers
• Harvey – the blood circulates around the body pumped by
the heart. His discovery came after careful dissection,
observation and experimentation and laid the groundwork for
future investigation of the blood. He was only gradually
accepted and it didn’t make anyone better.
• Paracelsus – illnesses were caused by chemicals in the body
and that treatments should be based on chemicals like salt,
mercury and sulphur. He believed that God had sent
messages called ‘signatures’ about how to cure illnesses e.g.
eyebright for eye complaints and orchids for STDs.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
7. Why factors
Communications: artists attended dissections to draw
accurate anatomical pictures, the printing press allowed
medical ideas to be spread quickly, new ingredients from
abroad (rhubarb and quinine).
Science and Technology: the first effective microscopes
were developed in the 1600s, cannons and guns were widely
used on battlefields, mechanical water pumps in London
inspired Harvey, the invention of the forceps downgraded
women’s role as midwives.
Religion: the church still supported many traditional ideas.
Renaissance Medicine– The What
7. Why factors
Governments: wealth and education helped trigger
the re-birth of interest in the Greeks and the Romans,
little was done to enforce regulations because of the
cost of employing people, they did not try to improve
public health except in emergencies; kings still
believed their task was making decisions about war.
War: frequent wars allowed surgeons to gain
experience.