Renaissance

Vesalius was born in 1514 and was a medical professor at Padua Univeristy, Italy. He believed that successful surgery would only be possible if doctors had a proper understanding of the anatomy.

Vesalius was able to perform dissections on criminals who had been executed. This let him study the human anatomy more closely.

He wrote books based on his obervations using accurate diagrams to illustrate his work.The most important of these books were 'Six Anatomical Pictures' and 'The Fabric of the Human Body'.

His works were printed and distrubuted around Europe including Britain, this allowed British doctors to read about Vesalius' findings and to learn from his discoveries.

Vesalius' work helped point out Galens mistakes. This encouraged others to begin to question Galens work. Doctors also realsed they was more to descover about the Human body.

He also showed that dissecting bodies was important to find out exactly how the body was structed. Because of this disection was used more and more in medical training.

Harvey was a British doctor born in 1578. He studied medicine at Padua university, Italy, then he worked in London at the Royal Collage of Physicians before becoming Rolyal Physiciab to James 1st and Charles 1st.

Harvey studied both animals and humanbs for his work. He relised that he can observe living animal hearts in action and that his findings would apply to humans.

Before Harvey people thought that they were two kinds of blood and they flowed through two completely sperate systems of blood vessels. This idea had come from Galen.Havrey realised Galens's theory was wrong. From expirements he knew thar too much blood was being pumped out of the heart for it to be continually formed and consumed. Instead he thought that blood must circulate.

Harvey's ideas, shown in his books, gave doctors a map of how the body worked, chaning thier understanding of anatomy.

However, not everyojne believed in his work, it took a long time before doctors used them in thier treatments. People still performed bloodletting even though Harvey proved the reason behind it to bewrong.

Pare was a French barbour-surgeon born in 1510. Pare worked for a public hospital then became an army surgeon. As an army surgeon, Pare treated many serious injuries casued by war. His experience of treating these wounds led him to develop some improved surgical techniques. Pare published his work so other surgeons can read them. British surgeons used Pare's meathods and took inspirtaion from them. Over time his ideas helped improve surgical techniques.

At the time a gunshot wound often became infected, doctors didn't understand why or how to treat it. The usal treatment was to burn the wound with a red hot iron or to pour boiling oiol on to it. This may of worked in some cases, but often it did more harm then good.During one battle, Pare ran out of oil and resorted, by chance, to a simple cool save, made from egg yolk, turpentine and oil of roses. The following morning, and to his amazement, the soldiers who had been treated with the tincture were in a much better condition than those who had been treated with boiling oil.

Pare also improved amputaions, efore him the blood vessles left were selaed by buring their ends with a red hot iron. Pare however, invented a method of tying off the vessels with ligatures. This was less painful than cauterisation, so it reduced the chances of the patient dying of shock. However it did increase the risk  of infection.

John Hunter was a well - known surgeon and scientist.

Hunter joined his brother William Harvey at his anatomy school in London.

Dissecting human corpses was a large part of the school's teaching. Over 12 years, Hunter was present at more than 2000 dissections, developing an unrivalled knowledge of the human body.

Hunter became an army surgeon in France and Portugal and a popular surgeon and teacher in England.

During his work he made several important medical discoveries. He learned  more about venereal disease (STI) a major cause of illness at the time and indroduced a new approach to the treatment of gunshot wounds.

Hunter is especially remembered for encouraging better approches to surgery. This included good scientific habits like learning as much about the body as possible to understand illness, experimenting to find out better ways to treat disease and testing treatments (e.g. animals) before using them on people.

Edward Jenner was a country doctor in Gloucestershire.

He heard that milkmaids didn't get smallpox but they did catch the much milder cowpox.

Using careful scientific methods Jenner investigated and discovered that it was true that people who had cowpox didn';t get small box.

In 1796 Jenner tested his theory. He  injected a small boy, James Phipps, with pus from the sores of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid with cowpox. Later he then injected the boy with smallpox. James didn't catch the disease.

Jenner published his findings in 1798. He coined the term vaccination using the Latin word for cow vacca.

Jenner faced some oppisition to his vaccine...

• Many people were worried about giving themseves a disease from cows.
• Some doctors who gave the older type of inoculation saw it as a threat to their livelihood.
• One doctor William Woodvile, clamed Jenner's vaccination worked little better than inoculation, after several smallpox deaths occurred at his hospital.
• When vaccination became compulsory in 1853, seral groups were formed to campaign against it - they didn't  like the idea of the government telling them what to do.

But  his discovery got the approval of Paliament...

• In 1802 parliament gave Jenner £10,000  to open a vaccination clinic. It gave Jenner a futher £20,000 a few years later.
• In 1840, vaccination against smallpox was made free for infants. In 1853 it was made compulsory.
• The vaccine was a sucess - it contributed to a big fall in the number of smallpox cases in Britain.

The work of Vesalius didn't have an immediate impact on the diagnosis or treatment of disease.

However, by producing a realistic description of the human anatomy and encouraging dissection , Vesalius provided an essential first step to impoving them.

Pare's ideas were resited by doctors who felt that a loly surgeon shouldn't be listened to.

He eventually became surgeon to the King of France and it was only with the Kings support that his ideas started to be accepted.

Harvey was one of many British doctors who studided medicine at a univeristy in Italy or France.

During the Renaissance, major new discoveries were being made at these European universites.

The discovery made by Vesalius were maqde at Padua University.

British doctors who stuided in Europe learnt the latest ideas in medicine abd brought them back to Britain.

Hunter's pupils included doctors like Edward Jenner.

This meant that his methods and ideas were passed on, improving the way people conducted scientific research as a whole.

Jenner was important because he used an experiment to test his theory.

Although experiments had been used during the Renaissance, it was still unsual for doctors to test their theories.

Jenner didn't know why his vaccine worked.

This lack of understanding meant Jenner couldn't develop any other vaccines.

This was only possible after Germ Theory was published in 1861, when Pasteur and others worked to discover vaccines against other diseases, like chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies.

• Vesalius
• Comment and Analysis ~ Vesalius
• William Harvey
• Ambroise Pare
• Ambroise Pare Objection
• John Hunter
• Comment and Analysis  ~ John Hunter
  
• Edward Jenner
• Edward Jenner's Opposition
• Comment and Analysis ~ Edward Jenner
• European Univeristies

• Bloodletting and Purging
• Apothecaries
• Superstition
• Quacks

Many doctors were reluctant to accept that Galen was wrong.

This meant that they countinued to yse simialr treatments to the Medival times, like bloodletting and purging.

Doctors tended to focus more on reading old book then on treating patients.

Doctors were also still very expensive.

As a result, most people used other healers, such as apothecaries or barber-surgeons or were treated in the home.]

Herbs were still the main ingredient in many drugs.

Superstition and religion were still important.

People thought the King's touch could cure scrofula ( a skin disease known as the 'Kings Evil').

Thousands of people with scrofula are thought to have visited King Charles 1st in the hope of being cured.

Some people sold medicines that didn't work and often did more harm than good.

This is known as Quackery.

Quacks sold their wares at fairs and markets and often had no medical knowledge.

From 1600 the College of Physicians started to license doctors to stop quackery.

The invention of printing in the 1440s was a huge development.

But becasue most people couldnt't read or write ( or couldn't afford the books in the first place) new ideasd could only be shared with a small part of society.

• Doctors
• Exploations
• Surgeons

Many doctors in Britain trained at the College of Physicians, which was set up in 1518.

Here they read books by Galen, but also studied recent medical developments.

Doctors who trained at the collage gained a licence, which separated them from the large numbers of Quack doctors.

However, a licence didn't guarantee that a doctor would give the most effective treatment - sometimes an expirenced unlicensed doctor could be just as good.

New weapons like cannons and guns were used in war. This meant surgeons had to treat injuires they had never seen before., forcing them to quickly find cures.

Dissections, which enable doctors to see how the body actually works, became a key part of medical training in the 1700s.

In the medival times there were two types of surgeons. There was a small group of professional surgeons, who trained at universities and were highy paid by their rich pateints.

Then they were the unqualified barber-surgeons.

In general surgeons weren't respected compared to doctor.

In the 1700s and 1800s surgeons begain to gain the same staus as doctors.

In 1800 the London College of Surgeons(later the Royal Collage of Surgeons) was created, which set training standards for sugeons for the first time.

• Similarities to the Black Death
• Diffrences to the Black Death
• Changes made during the Plague

• Many treatments for the Great Plague were still based on magic, religion and superstition, this included wearing luky charms or amulets saying prayers and fasting.
• Bloodletting was still being used, even though it probably made the plague worse as it created wounds which could easily become infected by the bacteria.
• Some people still believed miasma caused disease. This led to people carrying poises of herbs or flowers to improve the air.

• Town and Parish Councils tried to prevent the disease's spread.
• Plague victims and their families were quarantined in thier homes to stop the diease being spread. The victims house was marked with a red 'x' on the door.
• Areas where large amounts of peop,e are crowded togather, such as threaters, where closed.
• The dead bodies of the vivtims were buried in mass graves away from the houses, with their clothes burnt.

The Great Plague struck London in 1665 - it was rare but deadly recurrence of the Medieval Black Death.

Responses to the Great Plague were both similar and different to how people reacted to the Black Death.

The responses to the plague came from the local councils. The did more to try to combat the Great Plague than they had done for the Black death 300 years previously.

There was no national governemnt attempts at prevention.

The plague gradually began to disappear. Many people think the Great Fire of London, in 1666, helped wipe it out, by effectively sterilising large parts of London - it burnt down the old, crowded houses, killing the plague bacteria.

• Hospitals
• Florence Nightingale

In the 1530s, Henry VIII closed down most of Britain's monasteries ( the dissolution of the monasteries). Due to most the hospitals being set up and run by the the monasteires this led to the cosur of a large numbuer of hospitals. Until the 18th centuary Britian had very few hospitals.

From the early 18th century, several charity hospitals opened, including the Middlesex infirmary, The London Hospital and Guy's Hospital. They were funded by the rich, and offered largely free treatment to the poor. Some specialised in treating certain illnesses or providing somewhere for women to give birth.

However, only those who were likely to recover quickly were admitted- this was partly because of a lack of space and because the risk of contagious illnesses spreading. The 'deserving poor' (those who led hardworking respectiable lives) had a greater chance of being admitted.

Dispensaries provided free non-residential care to poor people. Medicines and non-surgical services from people like dentists and midwives were given with out charge.

Most poor people were treated in workhouses - large buildings that people went to if they could no longer look after themselfs, because of illness, unemployment or old age. Conditions were poor. From the 1850's a partiall successful movement began to improveconditiond in workhouses

In the 19th century, some hospitals were founded alongside unviversities and medical schools, including Charing Cross Hospital, University College Hospital and King's College Hospital.

These hospitals were used as training schools for doctors and for conducting scientific research.

Cottage hospitals, run by GP's opened from the 1860's.

They provided care for peoplein rural areas.

Florence Nightingale(1820 - 1910) studied to become a nurse in 1849, despite oppostion from her family. During her career, she helped nursing become more professionsl snf disciplined.

When the Crimean War broke out in 1853 - 1854, horror stories emerged about the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, where the wounded British were treated.

Sidney Herbert ( the Secretary of War and a family friend) asked for Florance to go to Scutari to sort out the nursing care within the hospital.

The army opposed to women nurces, as they were considered inferior and a distraction. Nightingale went anyway taking 38 hand-pickjed nurses with her.

Using meathods she had learned from her tranin in Europe , she ensured all the wards were clean and hygienic, that watersupplies were adequate and that the patients were fed properly.

Many of her nursing practices were then later used in Britain.

In 1859 Nightingale published a book 'Notes on Nursing'. This expalined her methods - it emohasied the need for hygiene and a professional attitude. It was the standard textbook for generations of nurses.

The public raised £44,000 to helop her to continue to train nurses, she set up the Nightingale School of Nursing in St. Thomas' Hospiutal in London.

Nurses werew given three years of traning before the could qualify.

Discipline and attention to detail were important.

Nightingale had improved the Barrack hospital in Scutari drasticly. Before she arrived the death rate in the hospital stood at 42%. Two years later it had fallen to just 2%.

Before the 18th century many hospitals focused only on caring for people.

In the 18th and 19th centries, treating diseases became more important.

In the 1700's smallpox was one of the most deadly diseases- in 1751 over 3500 people died in London alone as a result.

At the time, the only way to prevent smallpox was inoculation. This was promoted in Britain by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who learned about it in Turkey.

Inoculation involved making a cut in the pateint's arm and soaking it in pus taken from mthe swelling of somebody who already had a mild form of smallpox.

Inoculation was successful in preventing the disease, but it meant patients had to experience smallpox before they could become immune - some died as a result.