Medical Megastars

Name: Galen

Period: Roman

Work: the Theory of Opposites, too much of one humours made you ill so Galen used the opposite as part of the cure. Dissection, learnt about the inner workings of animals.

Factors: Role of individuals, Galen's theories provided the basis of medical training.

Short-term impact: natural cause of disease which was an improvement from supernatural.

Long-term impact: dissections formed the basis for medical knowledge until the Renaissance. Theory of Opposites was continued in Middle Ages.

Name: Vesalius

Period: Renaissance

Work: carried out dissections and disproved many of Galen's theories, such as the human jawbone is made up of two pieces, or that the liver has five lobes.

Factors: technology, printing meant ideas could be spread more quickly. Role of individuals, paved the way for 18th and 19th century.

Short-term impact: little, doctors didn't want to admit Galen was wrong

Long-term impact: allowed discoveries in 18th and 19th century

Name: Harvey

Period: Renaissance

Work: discoveries about circulation

Factors: war, Harvey was a battlefield doctor

Short-term impact: little, took forty years til his ideas were accepted

Long-term impact: central to proper understanding of how the body worked, encouraged others to investigate…