The word ‘ renaissance ’ means ‘rebirth’ in French. The period 1500-1700 was called the Renaissance because during that period there was a rebirth of interest in the ideas of the classical period. Once more the ideas of Hippocrates and
Galen were studied. The Four Humours became the focus for medical treatments and bloodletting was very popular.
Modern science as we know it began in this period and began to replace superstition in medicine. The Royal
Society , a body of leading scientists, was founded in 1660 in England with King Charles II as its patron. During this period it was seen as important for well-educated people to be knowledgeable in both science and art.
Leonardo da Vinci is best known for his works of art like the Mona Lisa, but he was also a scientist and regularly attended dissections. The picture on the left is an anatomical drawing made by Leonardo da Vinci.
Printing
In 1445, a Swedish man, Thomas Gutenberg , invented the printing press. Before printing, books had to be copied by hand. This meant that there were few copies of books. Printing encouraged the spread of new ideas, and books were more widely available and were also much cheaper.
The Reformation happened during the Renaissance period, largely because people were thinking about the things around them and were not content just to accept what had always been.
In 1517, Martin Luther nailed a list of things that he thought was wrong with the church to the door of a church in
Wittenberg in Germany. Many people liked his ideas. They became known as Protestants because they protested against the Catholic church. There was much debate which led
1

to new ideas being formed and spoken about. The domination of the Catholic church was threatened for the first time.
The Catholic church persecuted many thinkers. Galileo Galilei was imprisoned that the sun was the centre of the
Earth and Giordano Bruno was burnt at suggesting that there was more than one renaissance for life for saying universe not the the stake for universe.
Galileo
(1564-1642)
Paracelsus physician and was a German chemist. In 1527, he began a lecture to students by burning one of
Galen’s books and calling Avicenna a kitchen master.
He disagreed with the four humours theory. Paracelsus believed that disease attacks the body from the outside and that cures should help the body to defend itself against attack from disease, His criticisms of Galen encouraged medical thinking towards scientific thought by people such as Vesalius .
Paracelsus
(1493-1542)
Vesalius (1510-1590) conducting a dissection with students at
Padua university
Despite the efforts of the Church to preserve the existing order, new ideas, inventions and discoveries did take place in what we now call the Renaissance.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 2

In 1500 the most important books used in the training of doctors were still those written by Claudius Galen . Galen’s ideas had been dominant for hundreds of years, but were only proved wrong for the first time by Andreas Vesalius.
Who was Andreas Vesalius?
Vesalius was born in Brussels and completed his medical training in Paris. He went on to become Professor of Anatomy at Padua
University in Italy . During the Renaissance Padua was a famous centre for medical training. Vesalius believed that the dissection of human bodies was necessary if doctors were to find out how bodies worked. However, the dissection of human bodies was restricted by the Church. Vesalius therefore had to resort to taking bones from graves and even stealing a body from the gallows so that he could explore the anatomy of the human body.
How did he become well known?
In 1543 Vesalius wrote the first major book about anatomy.
It was called ‘de Humani Corporis Fabrica’ ( The Fabric of the
Human Body ). Vesalius worked closely with the famous artist
Titian who produced 277 anatomical illustrations for his book. He pioneered the use of highly illustrated medical text, where the drawings showed the human body in greater detail then ever before.
How did he change medical ideas?
Vesalius’s work brought about an important change in medical thinking. He was able to prove that some of Galen’s theories were wrong. Galen, who was only able to dissect animals, assumed that humans had the same anatomy. Vesalius by performing dissections on humans revealed anatomical structures previously unknown.
How important was Vesalius?
Vesalius helped establish surgery as a separate medical profession. At the time, though he was criticised, as many people refused to believe that Galen’s work could be wrong.
The popularity of Vesalius’s book, however, meant that his views gradually gained acceptance and greater emphasis began to be placed upon the study of anatomy in medical training.
A picture of Vesalius, carrying out a dissection at Padua University, surrounded by medical students.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 3

From the late I5th century, a ‘ Renaissance ’, or re-birth , of interest in the sciences spread from Italy through
Europe. A re-discovery of the ancient Greek and Roman texts was combined with a new, more rigorous approach to the study of science. The emphasis now was on explaining the natural world through observation and experimentation.
Artists like Leonardo da Vinci and
Titian in Italy began for the first time to accurately record their observations. With the invention of printing, their detailed anatomical drawings could be faithfully reproduced and published widely.
The writings of Galen attracted renewed his books on anatomy were published in Paris, translated directly from Greek into Latin. A medical student in Paris, Andreas
Vesalius, read Galen’s text when it was published.
Later, as Professor of Anatomy at Padua university, Vesalius published a number of anatomical texts, most famously ‘ The Fabric of the Human Body’ in 1543 , based on his own human dissections. He discovered that some of Galen’s observations were incorrect; Galen’s description of the liver, for example, was based on an animal’s liver, not one from a human. The discoveries of
Vesalius, and other scientists like Ambroise Pare and William
Harvey , encouraged other doctors to question their long-held assumptions about the anatomy of the human body.
A picture of Vesalius from ‘The Fabric of the
Human Body published in Latin in 1543.
Think about this:
• The difference printing made to the dissemination of information
• How the availability of bodies for dissection during the Renaissance helped improve anatomical knowledge
• The benefits of a scientific method in the study of medicine.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 4

At the beginning of the 16th century many surgical and medical treatments had not changed for hundreds of years. The main method of stopping a wound bleeding, for example, was to cauterise or seal it with a hot iron. Muslim doctors had developed this technique 500 years earlier. The man who stumbled upon a better method was Ambroise
Pare .
Who was Ambroise Pare?
Pare originally trained as a barber-surgeon and later joined the French army as a surgeon. The French were involved in many wars during the 16th century so Pare gained a great deal of practical experience.
How did he make his breakthrough?
It was by chance that Pare made his important discovery about the treatment of soldiers’ wounds. In an attempt to stop soldiers bleeding to death, wounds were usually scorched with burning oil or a hot iron to
Ambroise Pare seal them. Pare had run out of oil in the battlefield so had to try an alternative method. He made a dressing of egg whites, oil of roses and turpentine , which he applied to a wound. A similar method of treatment had originally been used by the Romans.
The dressing successfully sealed the wound and provided relief from pain. Pare also developed the use of a ligature to stop bleeding after an amputation. He realised that by tightening a belt around an artery the blood supply could be stemmed. After an amputation, Pare recommended that silk thread ligatures be used to tie off the individual blood vessels before the ointment was applied.
Was he accepted by the medical establishment of his day?
Few surgeons adopted Pare’s ideas. He had no formal university medical training and this meant that many other physicians did not take his ideas seriously.
However, Pare did enjoy a long medical career, during which he made other advances to help wounded soldiers, including the design of artificial limbs . Pare was also interested in obstetrics; he wrote a book on midwifery and founded a school for midwives in Paris.
How important was Pare?
Pare’s ideas were important as he developed an alternative to cauterization which was a major breakthrough in wound treatment. However wounds could still become infected. Despite opposition from the medical establishment, his case studies were published with the support of the French King. He was the official royal surgeon to four French Kings (serving Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX, and
Henry III). He is considered one of the fathers of surgery.
A Scientific experiment in the service of the king:
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 5

In 1565, Ambroise Paré described an experiment to test the properties of the Bezoar Stone.
At the time, the bezoar stone was commonly believed to be able to cure the effects of any poison, but Paré believed this to be impossible. It happened that a cook at the king's court was caught stealing fine silver cutlery, and was condemned to be hanged. The cook agreed to be poisoned, on the conditions that he would be given some bezoar straight after the poison and go free in case he survived. The stone did not cure him, and he died in agony seven hours after being poisoned. Thus Paré had proved that the bezoar stone could not cure all poisons.
The facts
Wars produced terrible wounds and the invention of firearms added gunshot wounds to the horrors of the battlefield. When soldiers became badly injured they often preferred their companions to cut their throats than to suffer an agonising death.
Even if the wounded soldier reached the operating table he had only a slim chance of survival. Amputations were carried out without anaesthetic , so the patient had to endure an enormous amount of pain. The main methods used to stop the flow of blood were a red-hot iron (called a cautery iron ), or hot oil.
Ambroise Pare a barber-surgeon serving in the French army developed an alternative to cauterising when he ran out of oil while treating soldiers on the
Pare treating wounded soldiers battlefield. He used a mixture of egg white, turpentine and rose oil and found it was more effective and less painful in treating wounds than cauterisation.
However, although Pare practised as a successful barber-surgeon for 20 years and served four successive kings he was not accepted by the medical establishment and many opposed his groundbreaking methods.
Memory time...
• Only 450 years ago wounds and amputated limbs were sealed with either a red hot iron or boiling oil
• In 1545 Pare published his new method of treatment, using a mixture of eggs, rose oil and turpentine
• Pare was a barber-surgeon and his new methods, although around-breaking, met with opposition from more qualified surgeons.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 6

Until the early 17th century Claudius Galen’s books were still being used in some medical schools. Although Andreas Vesalius had proved some of his ideas to be incorrect, Galen’s explanation of the heart was still preferred by most doctors. It was William Harvey who proved that Galen was wrong and so made one of the most famous of medical discoveries.
Who was William Harvey?
Harvey was a doctor at St.Bartholomew’s hospital in London and a
Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He was also the physician to James I and Charles I. Harvey studied at Cambridge and in Italy at the University of Padua where he became interested in anatomy and in particular, the work of Vesalius.
William Harvey
What were his important discoveries?
In 161 5 Harvey began to work on the idea that blood circulated around the body. By experimenting on live animals and dissecting the bodies of executed criminals, Harvey was able to prove that the heart was a pump which forced blood around the body through arteries. Veins then returned the blood to the heart where it was recycled. Harvey’s work was helped by the discovery that veins contained valves. Harvey realised that these valves stopped the blood from travelling back the wrong way to the heart. Galen’s theory (that the body made new blood as its supplies were used up) was proved wrong. In
1628 , Harvey published details of his work in his book entitled ‘ An Anatomical Disquisition on the Movement of the Heart and
Blood.
’
Why did Harvey face opposition?
After his work was published, Harvey actually lost patients, as his ideas were considered eccentric. It was not until after his death that others became convinced that he was right. Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), an Italian physician, used better quality microscopes to prove that Harvey’s ideas were correct.
How important was Harvey?
Harvey’s work made little difference to general medical practice at the time. Blood letting continued to be a popular practice and it was not until the 20th century that doctors realised the importance of checking a patient’s blood flow by taking a pulse. Harvey’s work did encourage others to investigate blood circulation, e.g. the blood’s role in carrying air from the lungs. His discovery of blood circulation was central to a proper understanding of the workings of the body.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 7

William Harvey announced his discovery that blood circulated around the body in 1616 . He had successfully challenged Galen’s view, popular for 1400 years, that blood was continually being made and used up.
Instead, Harvey proved that there was a fixed amount of blood which was pumped around the body by the heart. He also showed that blood flowed in one direction only. By the use of experiments and demonstrations using ligatures, Harvey set about proving his theory.
In 1628 Harvey published his book, ‘ An Anatomical Exercise
Concerning the Motion of the
Heart and Blood in Animals, which explained these findings.
This book made him famous throughout Europe and also generated much criticism from those who were unwilling to accept new ideas.
This is an illustration in Harvey’s book on the circulation. It shows one of his experiments in which he ‘milks the vein downward’ to demonstrate the one-way action of the veins. While the heart pumped blood around the body via the arteries, the veins returned the blood to the heart. The valves in the veins proved that only a closed, one-way system of circulation could work.
However, Harvey was not the first to believe in the circulation of blood. Ibn an-Nafis , an Arab doctor in the 12th century , had disagreed with Galen, but his ideas had not been followed up. In fact, nobody realised what he had said until his book was he had said until his book was rediscovered in 1924. The Egyptians had also believed that blood flowed through the body and had used leeches and bleeding to unblock the passages carrying blood.Harvey’s theory on the heart and circulation of the blood met with much resistance as by implication it threw doubt on the value of blood letting. Given it was now known that, there could not be too much blood in the system the practice of bleeding seemed unnecessary.
Memory time...
• William Harvey discovered that blood circulated around the body in
1616
• Galen’s view, that blood was continually being made and used up, had been popular for 1400 years
• In 1628 Harvey published his book, ‘An Anatomical Exercise Concerning the
Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals’, which explained these findings.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 8

RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 9

Aspect
Background
Major work
Book
Importance
Belgian doctor. Studied in
Paris. Professor of Surgery and Anatomy in Padua (Italy).
Influenced by artists who dissected bodies.
French army surgeon.
Apprenticed to his brother.
Later trained in Paris. Served with the French army in various wars. Became royal surgeon to
4 French kings.
English doctor. Educated in
Cambridge and Padua. Worked at
St Bartholomew’s Hospital,
London.
Dissected human bodies and used artists to draw them for use by medical students.
Realised that Galen was wrong in important respects such as the anatomy of the heart, liver and the jaw.
Discovered a new way of treating wounds when he ran out of boiling oil to ‘cauterise’ or seal them. Instead he used a lotion of natural substances.
Stopped bleeding by typing silk ligatures around arteries.
Carried out experiments to prove that the heart acts as a pump, which controls the circulation of the blood. Valves in the veins prevent blood from moving the wrong way.
The Fabric of the Human
Body (1543)
Works on Surgery (1575) On the Movement of the Heart and the Blood in Animals (1628)
His work seriously undermined
Galen’s authority and opened up medicine to modern medical research based on scientific dissection of the human body.
Another challenge to traditional ideas. Pare’s methods reduced pain from wounds. The use of non-sterile ligatures could cause further infection until Lister’s development of antiseptic surgery.
Harvey finally disproved Galen’s idea that new blood is made in the liver. Harvey did not have an effective microscope to prove the existence of capillaries.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 10

Feb 2 At 8 in the morning the King collapses as he is being shaved. He lets out a terrible shriek then falls unconscious. His physicians (doctors) are called for.
TREATMENT 1
The King’s doctors open a vein in the King’s arm and bleed 16 ounces of blood.
This did not lead to an improvement in his condition but the doctors repeated the treatment an hour later.
TREATMENT 2
Three hours after this the King’s servants started to complain that the doctors were not doing enough to cure him, so they gave him some pills that PURGED him
(made him empty his stomach)
Other treatments considered:
Place pigeons against the soles of the King’s feet;
Shave the King’s head and put burning tongs against his skin.
Feb 3 Briefly the King starts talking again; but then he shrieks again and falls unconscious
TREATMENT 3
The King is bled again: this time 2 veins are opened.
Other treatments considered:
Call Mistress Holder and ask her to give the King a herbal remedy.
Give the King some SACRED TINCTURE which will keep his bowels empty.
Feb 4 The King seems to be better in the morning: in the afternoon though he has another attack
TREATMENT 4
The doctors continued purging the King.
Other treatments considered:
Give the King a Medicine composed of: spirit of human skull mixed with an ounce and a half of cordial julep.
Just giving up
Feb 6 The King is declining rapidly
TREATMENT 5
The doctors consider giving the King the following remedy:
2 and a half grams of BEZOAR STONE. This is a green stone found on the stomach of goats, which is a famous remedy for illness. Before they get the chance to administer the Bezoar stone the king dies. The doctors send their bill to James
II, the new King.
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 11

Use this worksheet to record the way you treated Charles II. You can choose as many of the options for each decision as you like. After you have made your choices work out your score from page 110 in the SHP white book.
1a) open a vein b) Mistress Holder c) nothing d) X-ray
2a) bleed b) nothing c) purge d) pray
3a) purge b) shout at servants c) pigeons d) shave head
4a) Mistress Holder b) bleed c) purge d) run away
5a) bleed b) purge c) use medicine d) abandon treatments
6a) yes b) no
7a) send your bill b) see James II c) run away
RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 12

RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 13

RW RENAISSANCE BOOKLET 14