Medicine - Renaissance vs Medieval England

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Medicine - Renaissance vs Medival England

Similarities

  • Belief in the Theory of Four Humors, so continued to do purging, bleeding and sweating
  • Herbal remedies popular throughout both time periods, eg yellow herbs (saffron and raddish) used to treat jaundice (turns skin yellow)
  • Even though some chemical cures were being used in the Renaissance that weren't being used in the Medieval Period, these chemical cures were still used for the same purpose - purging
  • Prevention seen as best way to survive illness
  • Believed that to be healthy, they needed to practice moderation (eg avoid exhaustion, rich and fatty foods, alcohol and being lazy)
  • Cleanliness was important - people encouraged to keep homes and body clean, cleanliness less popular after rise of Syphilis and more popular in Renaissance

Differences

  • The Theory of Transference formalized and popularized in Renaissance - idea that disease could be transferred to an object
  • Chemical cures popularized after growth of alchemy in Renaissance - especially after Louis XIV of France said to be cured of Typhoid Fever from it. Eg. people would drink wine left in an antimony cup overnight - did not exist at all in Medieval England
  • Increased belief in miasma in Renaissance, so more efforts to remove it (eg people fined for not cleaning streets near their homes in England) - shows Gov taking a more active role in health
  • Idea of condition at birth linked to sickness important in Renaissance. E.g. if someone was born sickly, it might be connected to their death in adulthood

Overall comparison

Although there was a lot of change in ideas, overall, many of the practices were the same, even if they found new ways of carrying out those practices.

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