The Medical Renaissance Flashcards
All 29 cards in this deck
Who was Thomas Sydenham?
A 17th-century English physician who took a scientific approach, observing patients closely and classifying diseases; he showed scarlet fever and measles were different diseases.
What was Observationes Medicae?
Sydenham's book (1676) summarising his research and ideas; it became a standard medical textbook for about 200 years.
What did Sydenham say doctors should treat?
The disease itself, not just its symptoms — contrary to Galen's Theory of Opposites.
When was the Royal Society founded, and how did it help medical knowledge?
- It encouraged a scientific approach of experiment and enquiry and shared findings, e.g. Leeuwenhoek's report of 'animalcules'.
How did the printing press help the transmission of medical ideas?
New discoveries could be spread widely and quickly, and every reader of the same text received identical information.
True or false? By 1665 most people had given up the idea that disease had a religious cause.
False. Religious explanations were still common alongside miasma, shown by fasting and prayer being used against the plague.
True or false? Renaissance discoveries about anatomy and physiology changed people's ideas about what caused disease.
False. They improved knowledge of the body but had little relevance to explanations of the cause of disease, which stayed miasma, humours and divine punishment.
What idea were most treatments still based on c1500–c1700?
Balancing the Four Humours — bloodletting, purging and Galen's Theory of Opposites were still used as late as 1700.
What new treatment did Sydenham encourage for ague and malaria?
Cinchona bark (quinine), recently brought from the Americas; it was successful.
Who was Andreas Vesalius and what did he publish?
An anatomist who dissected human bodies and published On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543), improving knowledge of anatomy and undermining Galen's ideas.
True or false? Vesalius's discoveries quickly changed the way patients in England were treated.
False. His work improved knowledge of anatomy, but prevention and treatment still relied on balancing the humours.
What did William Harvey discover about the blood?
That blood circulates around the body, pumped by the heart, and is not constantly made and burned up as Galen claimed.
What methods did William Harvey use in his work?
A scientific approach: dissection, experiment, observation and recording his results.
When did Harvey publish his work on the circulation of the blood?
1628, in An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood.
True or false? Harvey's discovery of circulation immediately produced effective new treatments.
False. It greatly improved understanding of physiology, but treatments such as bloodletting continued.
What did people in 1665 think caused the Great Plague in London?
Divine action, miasma or astrological influences — the real cause was unknown.
Why were barrels of tar burned in London's streets in 1665?
To purify the air, because people believed the plague was caused by miasma.
What did the Lord Mayor of London order to stop people gathering during the Great Plague?
Theatres were closed (and large gatherings such as fairs banned).
What did the Lord Mayor order to be done to London's streets in 1665?
Rubbish was to be removed, as an attempt to purify the air and stop the plague spreading.
What happened to houses in London where someone caught the plague in 1665?
They were shut up and quarantined for 28 days, marked with a red cross, with a watchman on guard.
True or false? During the Great Plague of 1665 the authorities ordered cats and dogs in London to be killed.
True. People thought the animals might carry or spread the disease.
What journal did the Royal Society publish from 1665, and why did it matter?
Philosophical Transactions. Scientists published their experiments in it, so findings reached other doctors and scientists quickly and could be tested and argued over.
What effect did the dissolution of the monasteries (from 1536) have on hospitals in England?
Most hospitals, many of them run by the Church, were shut. Some charity-funded hospitals opened, but numbers stayed below their earlier level until the eighteenth century.
What was a pest house?
A separate building where people with an infectious disease, such as plague, were sent to be cared for away from the healthy.
How were surgeons and apothecaries trained c1500–c1700?
They trained through guilds, rising from apprentice to journeyman to master, and needed a licence to practise once trained.
Which new technology helped William Harvey think of the heart as a pump?
Mechanical water pumps.
How did Harvey's position as a royal physician help his discovery gain acceptance?
As a doctor to King James I, his work had status and publicity, so other doctors were more likely to take it seriously.
By roughly when was Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood being taught in medical schools?
By about 1700, decades after he published it in 1628.
What was done with the bodies of plague victims in London in 1665?
Dead carts took them away and they were buried together in large plague pits rather than in individual graves.