Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The impact of the
Medical Renaissance
-> c1500 - c1750
- Key people
- Vesalius
- Professor of Surgery
- At Padua University in Italy
- Interested in Anatomy
- Published book
- 'The Fabric of the Human Body'
- On anatomy (body and dissections of corpses)
- In 1543
- Discovered some of Galen's teachings were wrong
- Proved the Septum had no holes
- Proved that for Monkeys and Pigs - Galen was right - have 2 lower jaw bones
- BUT - proved Galen wrong- humans only have 1 lower jaw bone!
- Showed that liver has no lobes
- Showed Sternum only had 3 parts instead of 7
- Harvey
- Interested in circulation of blood
- Worked out through experiment/observation
- Veins only carry blood rather than mix of blood and air
- Proved Galen wrong
- Blood is NOT constantly manufactured by liver
- Blood is NOT used up as it moves around body
- Proved Galen wrong
- Blood is actually circulated repeatedly around body
- Published book
- In 1628
- 'An anatomical account of the motion of the heart and blood in animals'
- Explanation of ideas
- Supported by details of his studies
- In Englishman
- Took over 40 years for his ideas to be accepted
- He was correct that blood had to go through tiny blood vessels to move from arteries to veins
- But couldn't prove it as the lenses in microscopes
weren't powerful enough to show capillaries until
much later
- People often reluctant to accept new ideas
- Harvey's work was on Physiology (how body's organs function)
- Not on cause/treatment of illness
- Didn't seem relevant to work of Physicians + problems of disease
- Religion
- Changes in religion
- known as the Reformation
- Led to decline in Church's authority
- Even though most people remained strongly religious
- Educated people wanted to check knowledge for themselves
- Instead of relying on views of an accepted 'authority'
- The Royal Society
- Group meeting in London , 1660
- Published regular accounts of discussions
- On wide range of scientific theories
- With King Charles II's approval
- Included: Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton + Robert Hooke
- Science/Technology
- People wanted to check knowledge for themselves
- Led to a scientific approach of Testing + Recording
details + Sharing these results with others
- Printing Press
- Meant printed copies of books could be produced quickly and cheaply
- Such as those by Vesalius and Harvey
- Physicians did not do dissections themselves
- Could learn from Vesalius' illustrations
- Could copy Harvey's experiments
- Produced Herbals - described plants
and herbs used in medicine
- Printed in ordinary language instead of Latin
- Mechanisms in Pumps and Clocks
- Helped people to accept the idea of the body functioning as a machine
- Better lenses for a Microscope
- Developed by Dutch scientist - Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek
- He discovered BACTERIA
- Described as 'animalcules' in letter to Royal Society 1673