Download Downloaden - Scholieren.com

Werkstuk Geschiedenis Medicine in the Renaissance
Introduction
Im going to write about Medicine in the Renaissance. The basics of medicine had
already been developed in the Ancient Greece and Roman culture but in the
Renaissance it developed even more. I think itҒs a very fascinating subject because of
the brilliant minds behind every detail discovered up until now. You will see that a lot
Ive written about is based on people.
Medicine in the Renaissance
When the Roman Empire collapsed in the beginning of the dark ages, a lot of the
civilization, culture and learning disappeared from Western Europe. Then in the 9th and
10th century Christianity spread over Europe. People were highly religious and a lot of
civilization (e.g. architecture, manuscripts, etc) and discoveries disappeared. In the 14th
and 15th century in Italy people began to doubt that this was really the point of life.
They still believed in God, but they didnҒt believe that abandoning all the civilization
was what life was for. They rediscovered old Greek and Roman manuscripts (The
Greeks had been more concerned about philosophy than the Romans). These people
were called humanists. After that, the rest of Europe changed too.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), a Florentine artist, architect and a man of letters called this
period a rinӠscita, or in English ԓa rebirth. It was called rebirth because it was the
rebirth of the ancient Greek and a bit of the ancient Roman culture. Although the
ancient Greek and Roman discoveries, philosophies and culture were important another
important factor for this huge change was the invention of printing. They could now
spread information with reduced costs. The development of trade still resulting from
Crusades also made trade more likely and easier possible. Methods, culture and a lot
more could now be exchanged so a lot of things became different and improved. The
same goes for medicine.
Medicine was of course, after domination of the Christian church, still strongly
influenced by it. Doctors of that time also were highly interested in Astrology and
magic, because these had been taboo during the ԓregime of the church. But slowly those
who were interested in this started to read books translated from Arabic Medieval texts
and they began to study anatomy in a different and scientific way. Andreas Vesalius and
Leonardo Da Vinci were the first to start opening up human bodies to find out how it
worked and how it looked like. The church did not permit them to use bodies of normal
people, as they believed it would be needed to go to heaven. But they were allowed to
use bodies of criminals or sinners. As punishment some of the criminals were still alive
when Leonardo Da Vinci or Andreas Vesalius started.
The basics of medicine were established by the ancient Greeks and it endured until the
Renaissance. It was the principle of the four humours or liquids in the human body
(blood, phlegm, choler, melancholy or black choler). If a person was ill, his humours
were out of balance. Vomiting and bleeding were aimed at restoring the balance
between those four humours by the body.
They made a diagnosis by checking the colour of the patientԒs complexion and testing
the humours (by looking and tasting the urine).
Medical humanists
As I wrote before humanists were the people who thought the world should no longer be
only about religion. So medical humanists were doctors. They were doctors who werent
bound to the rules of the church. I could of course write about Leonardo Da Vinci or
Andreas Vesalias but I think that they are famous enough as it is and that there are a lot
of other brilliant people not so famous, who deserve it too!
The first renaissance doctors also knew a lot about physics and astronomy like
Copernicus (1473-1524), mainly because of their continued interest in magic and
astrology. They continued to be interested in astrology and magic but it was now easier
because those things had been taboo during the ғregime of the church.
A lot of major courts and cities of Europe sent their best to Italy for training and
advanced education. The humanists were also very tolerant towards new ideas or maybe
more against old ideas.
NiccolԲ Leoniceno (1428-1524), on of the early medical humanists, taught medicine at
the universities of Padua, Bologna and Ferrara. He was against the humanist tradition of
only tolerating new ideas. He might have threatened the early humanists and he mightve
showed them how many attributes of medieval thinking outlived the middle ages.
Theophrastus Bombastus von Homenheim or also called Paracelsus (1493-1541) earned
himself the title: ғfather of pharmacology. He was also educated in Italy, in Ferrara
under NiccolԲ Leoniceno. He distinguished himself from the others by his great interest
in Alchemy and Astrology. When he finished his study he wandered around the world
he only stayed in Freiburg, Strassburg and Basel briefly where some remarkable cures
gained him fame. Further he quarrelled with the authorities for not accepting some old
classics (old traditions or possibilities with medicine that came from before the
Renaissance). This angered the old in Authority but attracted the young and those in
training. He was also different because he taught not in Latin but in the country in
which he was staying. As last thing he wrote a book about pharmacology (this actually
was the main reason for his title: father of pharmacologyӔ) in spite of his medieval
beliefs about the influences of stars and planets on diseases his book contained the
basics, which we still profit of today.
The last famous medical humanist I will write about is Jean Fernel (1497-1588) who
was trained in Paris; this proved that not all medical progress was dependent on
Northern Italy.
He wrote a book called A Universal Medicine this was the first book in which the
author had divided the study of medicine into the three now standard parts of medicine.
They were physiology (the normal functioning of the body), pathology (the abnormal
functioning of the body) and therapeutics (those things which might resolve
abnormalities).
There were of course a lot more brilliant medical humanists or doctor from the
renaissance but that are too many to write about.
Surgery
Before the Renaissance there wasnt much surgery except from cutting of peopleҒs arms
or legs. Slowly that started to change.
In the Renaissance clinical surgery came originally from France and most came from
one man. His name was Ambroise Par (1517?-1590). He came from the countryside to
become a barber and later he became a wound-dresser at Htel-Dieu in Paris. In 1537 he
joined the army where he became famous. At that time it was known that gunshot
wounds had to be treated with boiling oil. Ambroise Par鴩 wrote in his book (The
Method Of Treatment For Wounds Caused By Firearms) that one night when he was
treating the wounded after a battle, he discovered that he was out of oil and he had only
treated half of his patients. With a guilty conscience but without choice he just cleaned
their wounds and dressed them. The next morning he went to see them, thinking that he
would see them in worse state than the ones he had treated with boiling oil but the ones
treated with boiling oil were feverish and their wounds red inflamed. The ones treated
without were sleeping comfortably and healing well. This one was of the many
discoveries he made. Development of surgery in the Renaissance was mainly because of
him.
Conclusion
I think you can say that medicine had an important part in the development of the
Renaissance. It was one of the big changes, which occurred in the dark ages when it was
becoming the Renaissance. In the dark ages a lot of medical advancement was stopped
by the church (for example, cutting open peoples bodies to see how it worked) and was
forgotten. Luckily that changed! And luckily the Ancient Greeks and Romans were so
brilliant that today have quite a high life expectancy, at least in Europe!