Medical Renaissance

Essential information:

1. Renaissance means rebirth this period was a rebirth in interest in Ancient ideas and improvements were made to them.

2. So many discoveries were made in this period because of the development of printing, the discovery of America, new machinery was developed, religious ideas were changing and individuals were challenging traditional ideas.

3. Vesalius produced a series of drawings of the anatomy of the body based on dissections he had made – the Tabulae Sex and The Fabric of the Human Body. In these he challenged some of Galen’s ideas about the structure of the human body for example the structure of the jawbone, this encouraged others to challenge Galen’s ideas.

4. William Harvey also showed how Galen was wrong. He proved that the heart acts like a pump and circulates blood around the body. These ideas were shared in the book ‘On the Motion of the Heart’.

5. Pare made changes to surgery. Before Pare wounds after surgery had been healed through cauterisation and boiling oil. This often led to patients dying of shock. Pare developed the use of rose oil, egg yolk and turpentine; this led to less pain and enabled the wounds to heal. To stop the bleeding Pare tied arteries with silk ligatures. This was controversial and sometimes caused infection.

6. New inventions at this time were taking place including the microscope.

Revision tasks:

1) Why were there so many new ideas developed during the renaissance?

2) What does renaissance mean?

3) Why was Vesalius important in the progression of medicine?

4) Why was William Harvey important in medicine?

5) Why was Pare important in the history of surgery?

6) Which was the most important figure, Vesalius, Pare or Harvey?