Medicine in Renaissance England 1500-1699

• The Church


  • Partially influential as it still helped to spread false beliefs in the causes of disease but its influence was declining significantly
• The Government


  • Not very influential, however, they did do more to prevent disease during the Great Plague and created the Royal Society but it was still not the main role of the Government and didn't support new discoveries in meaningful ways and didn't improve Public Health
• Education


  • Influential as Galen's ideas were still taught, the ability to treat and prevent disease was therefore limited. Blood circulation however was taught so there was improvement as new and correct ideas were taught. Education increasingly involved dissections
• Attitudes


  • Influential as they were still mainly based around superstition and God, however, some scientific method began to be embraced (observing symptoms etc.) and scientists were more willing to challenge old ideas
• Individuals


  • Influential as Vesalius, Harvey and Sydenham began to change medical knowledge. However, they had no impact on understand the cause of disease so their work towards the prevention and treatments of disease was limited
• Science and Technology


  • Influential due to the use of microscopes to aid discoveries like discovering the capillaries. The printing press of 1440, which only started to be used around 1500, allowed for new ideas and studies to be published, improving education as new ideas spread at a greater pace
• Andreas Vesalius


  Performed human dissections, proving Galen's theories wrong. For example, he showed that the human jawbone was made from 1 bone not 2. He proved the importance of using dissection and the scientific method, influencing future physicians and their education
• William Harvey


  Proved Galen's theory that blood was made in the liver was wrong and proved that the heart pumped blood and veins do not carry air
• Thomas Sydenham


  The first doctors to stress the importance of looking at a patient's medical history and made detailed observations of diseases (i.e. about scarlet fever). He prescribed treatments to help the body fight illness
• The Printing Press was invented

  1440
• The Printing Press was used widely across Europe

  1500
• Vesalius published discoveries in the book The Fabric of the Human Body


  1545
• William Harvey published An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood


  1628
• St Bartholemew's Hospital expanded to 12 wards and could hold up to 300 patients. They began to treat the sick


  1660s
• The Royal Society formed and allowed scientists to discuss and share discoveries and ideas


  1662
• The Great Plague struck in London and was blamed on God's punishment and traditional methods like superstition and herbal remedies were used to treat it. More effective prevention was infected were quarantined


  1666
• William Harvey published An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals in the year 1628