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Medicine in Renaissance England c1500-c1700 (Key words (secular = not…
Medicine in Renaissance England c1500-c1700
Dealing with the Plague
in London 1666
Prevention
families report plague symptoms withing 2 hrs
smoke to clear bad air
households clean the streets
'women searchers'
animals banned from inside the city
pomander
carts collect dead bodies
sick people shut away in homes with cross on door & watchmen guarding
Treatment
mad/crazy remedies
cut open buboes to let pus out
magical/religious charms
Theriac medicine
bleeding, purging
pray for sick
traders sold 'great medicines'
similar to Black Death
Ideas about illness
Causes
transference
animalcules
miasma
supernatural
not really astrology
evil spirits
religious causes
weather conditions
Treatment
chemical cures
bloodletting, purging & sweating
women cared for sick who couldn't go to hospital
specialised hospitals e.g. pest houses, plague houses, poxhouses
hospitals for wounds & curable diseases e.g. fevers
apothecaries, surgeons for those too poor for physicians
herbal remedies
transference
Prevention
transference
removal of bad air
practice of regimen sanitatis
relocating to avoid disease from weather conditions
William Harvey
-Discovery of the circulation of blood
some criticised Harvey for not having a powerful enough microscope to find capilaries
blood must carry through from arteries to veins through a tiny passage (later found to be capillaries)
corrected Galen
veins carry blood
heart is a pump
arteries & veins link together in one system
he was said to be mad
Key words
secular = not connected with religious or spiritual matters
pomander = a ball that contained perfume substances
anatomy = the branch of science concerned with the bodily structure of humans
transference = belief that an illness could be transferred to something else e.g. people believed if you rubbed an object on a boil the disease would transfer from the person to the object
printing press = a machine for producing text and pictures
dissection = cutting up body to study its internal parts
epidemic = a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time
Was there little progress?
Yes
old ideas were moved away from, but nothing replaced
still supernatural, bloodletting etc.
his discovery - Harvey had little practical use in medical treatment so led to very little change
No
science & technology - doctors started to question old ideas & look to science for causes of disease
change in explanations of illness
less Church influence
Four Humours discredited late 17th century but still used in practice until then
no more urine analysis
printing press
15th century 1st one invented
contributed to decline in church influence
physicians could publish books that criticised Galen
medical info spread further & quicker
Harvey - encouraged other scientists to experiment on actual bodies
Printing Press & microscopes introduced
Decline in Church influence - most people now believed God didn't send disease
impact of Vesalius
inspired other e.g. Fabricus discovered valves in veins after Vesalius' death & shared with William Harvey
caused controversy
his work was heavily copied & appeared in medical texts
angered traditionalists
anatomy became central to study of medicine & doctors encouraged to do dissections
Key People
Thomas Sydenham
respected doctor in London 1660s & 1670s
helped move away from ideas of Hippocrates & Galen
believed in observing patients closely, writing detailed descriptions of symptoms & looking for remedies to treat -not relying on medical books
His book 'observation medicae' was used for two centuries
known as 'English Hippocrates' because they both placed great importance on observing a patient
The Royal Society
discuss new ideas in astronomy, medicine & science
sponsored scientists & assisted them with publications of their work and ideas
founded in London 1660
made it possible for scientists to study one another's books
Harvey
1615 - became a lecturer in anatomy at The College of Physicians
finally became the doctor of King James I
studied medicine at Cambridge & then medical school in Padua
Gutenburg
Vesalius
lecturer at University of Padua in surgery & had a deep interest in human body
found around 300 mistakes in anatomical work of Galen e.g. human jaw has 1 bone, not 2
encouraged other doctors to base their work on dissections, not books. He explained mistakes by pointing out Galen dissected animals not humans
most famous anatomist of this period