History: Renaissance

• When was the Renaissance?

   1500 to 1750
• What was the Renaissance?

    rebirth of learning that changed the way people viewed things
• Who was the vesalius?

  • Professor of surgery
  • Wrote books about anatomy called, the Fabric of the human body
  • Proved Galen wrong
  • Showed how the skeleton moved, the nervous system, digestive system all worked
  • Very popular with English surgeons
  • basis for better treatments
  • Showed people how to do proper dissections
• Who was Pare?

  • The most famous surgeon in Europe
  • Wrote a book in 1545 about his new ideas of treating wounds
  • Used ligatures
  • Invented the Crow's beak clamp instead of cauterisation
  • Designed false limbs
  • Many English surgeons used his work
• Who was William Harvey?

  • charles II Doctor in 1632
  • Lectured on how blood movement circulates around the body and how the heart controls the movement
  • Contradicted Galen
  • Published a book in 1628 which criticized galen's work
  • Couldn't prove his findings due to lack of technology which led to many not accepting his work
• What did the printing press invention mean?

  Books could be made quickly and more cheaply
• What did Harvey prove arteries and veins did?

  linked together in one system
• Who treated the Ordinary People?

  • Barber surgeons
  • Wise women
  • Quacks
  • Apothecaries
• What did Sir Charles scarburgh do to King Charles II in February 1685?

  • Gave him 58 drugs and he was purged, bled, blistered and cauterised, as he had a disturbance on the brain.
  • But he really had a chronic kidney disease that killed him
• What did Thomas Sydenham do?

  • Believed practical experience was more important
  • Claimed diseases could be organised into different groups
  • Identify diseases such as scarlet fever
  • Dismiss the value of dissection
• What were the causes of the Great Plague?

  • Punishment from God
  • Astrology
  • miasma
• How did people try to cure the Great Plague?

  Rich fled to other places, Plague pit, Quarantine, More of a connection with filth
• What did William boghurst suggest that would cure the Great Plague?

  You may cut up a puppy dog alive and apply warm to the sores
• What did houses with plague victims inside have on the front door?

  A red cross with the words, Lords Have Mercy on us
• What happened when Henry VIII closed down churches and monasteries?

  He gave his money to start hospitals such as Saint Thomas'
• What did people start to think in the early 18th century about hospitals?

  Hospitals could use more modern methods to cure the patients rather than to letting them rest
• Who funded new hospitals?

  • Charities and organisations
  •  Local people such as Westminster Hospital which was founded by a merchant
• What was typically attached to an 18th century Hospital?

  Medical schools
• How did doctors learn?

  Mainly through lecturers and Reading, but also gave chances for students to watch medical professors on wards for their last year of training
• What was so different about the layout of hospitals compared to earlier hospitals? 

  Different wards were assigned different diseases
•  Why did doctors want to work at hospitals?

  Best reputation, attracted wealthy private clients, looked after ordinary people in hospitals for free
• What kind of specialist hospitals were opened?

  • St Lukes for mentally ill
  • Lock hospital for STDs
  • Maternity hospitals for pregnant women, which was set up by the British hospital for mothers and babies in 1749
• What did Thomas coram set up?

  A hospital for poor children called the foundling hospital. this gave orphans a place to stay, clothes, and in education
• How many patients were the hospitals handling by 1800? 


  20,000 per year
• What was different about people's attitudes towards medicine?

  People began to think that illness was not sent as a punishment from God but could be dealt scientifically
• Who was John Hunter?

  • experimented on himself as he thought gonorrhea and syphilis couldn't exist at the same time, it took him three years to recover
  • surgeon to King George III
  • man was admitted to Saint George's with an uneurysm, he cut at the man's leg and several points tied off the artery restricted the blood flow, and six weeks later, he was good
  • had 3000 stuffed animals, plants, fossils, and embryos
  • had a skeleton of a 7.7ft Irish giant
• In what ways were the vesalius and John Hunter similar?

  • Both had teaching experiences
  • both influential
  • both had books translated into other languages
  • both were surgeons
  • both used dissection to challenge old ideas and create new methods
• What is inoculation? 


  Giving someone a dose of a disease so their immune system can fight off, so that if they ever get again they won't become ill
•  What are the disadvantages of inoculation?

  • Can become very ill
  • too much can become an overdose
  • not enough Can Be injected in
• What did Edward Jenner work?

  As a country doctor
• How did Edward Jenner carry out his smallpox vaccine?

  Carried out experiments with poor children and injected them with cowpox. six weeks later he would inject them again but this time smallpox. his patients did not catch smallpox or show any mild symptoms
• What happened in 1853 to do with a smallpox vaccine? 


  Became compulsory by the government and is now wiped out as a disease
• What is a vaccination?

  Giving someone a small dose of a disease from a different one you are trying not to get
• Why was John Hunter controversial?

  Paid grave diggers to dig up bodies which he would experiment on
• Who was the opposition of Jenner?

  • Couldn't explain how the vaccine worked
  • Many doctors made money off inoculation
  • William Woodville and George Pearson tested it however the experiment was contaminated and the patient died
• When was the Great Plague?

  1665