Medical renaissance

Medical renaissance

1. Renaissance means 're-birth'

2. Medical progress

   • Art
     • The human body was drawn in proportion
     • People like Da Vinci wanted to carry out dissections to ensure the body was portrayed accurately
   • Education
     • Education became more important
     • Rich boys could attend school
     • More Universities were set up
   • Printing Press
     • Books could be mass produced
     • Doctor's could spread their ideas quickly and easily
     • Improved communication
   • Technology
     • New machines like the water pump showed that for things to work they need several smaller parts
     • More powerful microscopes invented
   • War
     • Essential way for doctors to and perfect understanding of surgical technique
     • New weapons meant wounds changed, so new treatments were required
   • Challenge to old ideas
     • The Church began to lose influence and had less control over people
     • The Church was beginning to be disproved

3. Leonardo da Vinci

   • Worked with a surgeon
   • Secretly challenged Galen's ideas
   • Made dissections more acceptable

4. Vesalius

   • 1514-1564
   • Wrote a book called 'The Fabric of the human body'
     • Published in 543
     • Accurate anatomical illustration of all parts of the human body
   • Challenged old ideas and the Church
   • Made dissection more acceptable
   • He challenged Galen and inspired others to do more original research
   • Discovered...
     • The jaw was made up of one bone
     • Galen's observation of the heart were wrong
     • The heart pumped blood
     • DID NOT DISPROVE BLACK BILE

5. Factors that made it easier to make discoveries

   • Dissections became more acceptable
   • The Church had less power and so ideas could be published without fear of punishment, and so as ideas were shared scientists could use others' research and build upon it
   • Printing press meant private businesses could print things more quickly and they didn't have to be approved by the Church

6. Harvey

   • Royal Doctor inspired by Vesalius
   • People thought he was mad and still believed Galen's ideas
   • Discoveries
     • Only one type of blood
       • Turns blue when deoxygenated
     • Corrected the circulatory system
       • Blood travels in circles
     • Published book containing his findings called 'on the motion of the heart'
     • Heart works like a pump
     • Blood flows in one direction
     • One-way valves stop blood going the wrong way
     • Blood is re-circulated rather than replaced
   • Impact on medical learning
     • More dissections
     • Proves Vesalius' right and contradicted Galen's ideas, specifically the liver
   • Performed vivisections on cold-blooded animals as their heart beats slowly
   • Performed and used many scientific experiments to prove his ideas

7. Goverment reactions to Public Health

   • Towns like London grew
   • Infections spread very quickly as London grew, as it spread to the whole town it became an epidemic
   • 1665 - The Bubonic Plague
     • Killed half of the population
     • At this time authorities were responsible for stopping the disease from spreading
       • Closed theatres to stop large groups gathering
       • Isolation for important people
       • Banned large funerals
       • Your house would be boarded up for 28 days if the plague was discovered in the house
       • Carts came through the cities to collect dead bodies and bury them deep in the ground in a large hole
       • Days of fasting and prayer
       • Dogs and cats were killed
       • Barrels of tar were burned in the street
   • People thought bad air could cause plagues
     • MIASMA
   • Streets were dirty and overcrowded