Medicine in the Renaissance c1500–c1700
The big context shift
The Renaissance was a "rebirth" of classical learning + new scientific approaches. Three breakthroughs sit at the heart of Edexcel's spec: Vesalius (anatomy), Paré (surgery), Harvey (circulation). All built on Galen but had the courage to correct him.
The "Three Vs" — key individuals
Andreas Vesalius (1514–64) — anatomy
- Published De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543) with detailed engravings
- Conducted dissections personally (rather than reading from a book)
- Corrected ~200 of Galen's anatomical errors (e.g. jaw is one bone, not two; humans have no porous heart wall)
- Importance: showed it was OK to challenge Galen — opened the door to scientific method
Ambroise Paré (1510–90) — surgery
- French battlefield surgeon
- Replaced cauterisation of wounds with ligatures (tied silk threads around blood vessels)
- Used soothing balm (egg yolks, rose oil, turpentine) instead of boiling oil
- Wrote Apologie and Treatise (1585)
- Importance: practical surgical advances — but ligatures sometimes carried infection (no antiseptic)
William Harvey (1578–1657) — circulation
- Court physician to King James I and Charles I
- Demonstrated that blood circulates around the body — pumped by the heart, not produced by the liver (as Galen claimed)
- Used vivisection of cold-blooded animals to slow the heartbeat enough to observe
- Published De Motu Cordis (1628)
- Importance: corrected one of Galen's most fundamental errors. But blood transfusions still failed (no blood groups known until 1901).
What helped change happen?
| Factor | How it helped |
|---|---|
| Printing press (Gutenberg, 1440) | New ideas spread quickly, accurate diagrams (Vesalius) |
| Royal Society (1660) | State endorsement of experimental science; published Philosophical Transactions |
| Decline of Church authority | Reformation, Protestant humanism — questioning was no longer always heresy |
| Renaissance art | Anatomical accuracy in painting (Da Vinci) drove anatomical interest |
| New worlds | Exploration brought new diseases AND new herbal remedies (e.g. cinchona for malaria) |
The Great Plague of 1665
Killed ~100,000 Londoners. Same period of "discoveries" but prevention was largely the same as 1348: red crosses on doors, burning houses, fleeing the city. Treatments still humoural. Why? Knowledge takes time to translate into practice — cause of plague still unknown until germ theory in 1860s.
Continuity in everyday treatment
The big Renaissance discoveries didn't reach the average patient. Most people:
- Still used herbal remedies and Wise Women
- Still believed in miasma + the four humours
- Still relied on barber-surgeons for surgery
- Still died from infection after operations
⚠Common mistakes
- Saying "Vesalius cured diseases" — he didn't. He corrected anatomy. Treatments stayed similar.
- Saying "Paré ended infection" — ligatures could spread it.
- Saying "Harvey saved lives directly" — circulation theory took 200+ years to translate into useful blood transfusions.
- Forgetting the Great Plague response — looks medieval, but happened in a "Renaissance" period. Shows continuity.
AI-generated · claude-opus-4-7 · v3-edexcel-history