Medical Treatments in Renaissance Britain (Edexcel GCSE History)

Treatments in the Renaissance - Timeline & Summary

Scientific Treatments in the Renaissance

Transference

• By using observation, scientists began to understand that diseases could be passed from person to person

• Transference is the idea that touching an object or another animal could move a disease from one thing to another

• Using this idea, many physicians prescribed the following treatments:

  • Rubbing onions on a wart in the belief the wart would transfer to the onion

  • Strapping live chickens onto buboes in the belief that the plague would transfer into the chicken

  • Sleeping with a sheep to give the patient’s fever to the sheep

• Whilst these treatments were ineffective, it was the beginning of epidemiology (the study of how diseases spread)

latrochemistry

• latrochemistry became increasingly popular in the 17th century

  • It stemmed from experimenting with metals to create chemical cures

• The Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1618) suggested remedies which included metals

  • It included over 2000 remedies using 122 different chemical combinations

• Historical records highlight the benefits of using antimony as a chemical cure:

  • In small doses, it caused a patient to sweat

  • In large doses, it causes vomiting

  • Too much pure antimony was poisonous

  • A compound known as antimony potassium tartrate became incredibly popular after stories circulated that it cured Louis XIV of France from typhoid fever

• Within this period, scientists focused on creating a chemical cure for syphills

  • They experimented with guaiac wood and mercury

  • No chemical cures proved to be effective

  • It remained a dangerous threat to the health of the people

Apothecaries & Surgeons

• The medics from the medieval period continued to care for the sick in the Renaissance

• There had been some developments in their ideas and practices

Apothecaries

• Apothecaries had guild systems

  • This improved service to customers

• Apothecaries continued to provide herbal remedies

  • latrochemistry provided more remedies for apothecaries to formulate

• Education improved:

  • It took multiple years of practice as a journeyman to become a master in the profession

• Apothecaries required a license to practice their craft

• Apothecaries continued to be an affordable choice for treatment but could also prescribe ineffective or dangerous remedies

Surgeons

• Surgery needed to advance

  • Weaponry and warfare became more dangerous 

  • This caused more complex wounds and injuries that needed surgery

• Similar to apothecaries, the education of surgeons improved

  • Surgeons undertook an apprenticeship to learn the necessary skills from a master barber-surgeon

• Surgeons required a license to practice their craft

• Surgeons continued to operate on those who could not afford a physician 

• The survival rate for surgery was still poor

  • Patients still did not have access to pain relief, which meant they could die from shock

  • Losing too much blood during the procedure resulted in death

    • Surgeons did not know how to replace blood during surgery

  • Surgeons continued to use dirty equipment

    • This meant many people died post-operation from infection

AWAITING IMAGE

A diagram showing the continuity and change of treatments in the Renaissance period

Physicians

Physicians

• Physicians were still trained in university but some changes occurred: 

  • New ideas slowly filtered into training courses which challenged physicians' thinking about the causes of disease

  • The development of the printing press led to a wider selection of textbooks on topics such as anatomy and iatrochemistry being available

  • If students could not afford a whole book, fugitive sheets were available

• Training continued to be mostly theoretical rather than hands-on experience in treating patients

• The declining influence of the Church meant dissection was allowed but it was hard to find fresh corpses:

  • In the 18th century, a craze called ‘body-snatching’ began

  • Medical students or criminals would illegally dig up bodies to perform dissection

  • A famous example of this is William Burke and William Hare (known as Burke and Hare) in Edinburgh

    • They killed 16 victims to sell the bodies to Robert Knox, a Scottish anatomist

Changes and Continuity to Medical Medics in the Renaissance

Andreas Vesalius

• Andreas Vesalius was a famous anatomist who trained in Paris in 1533 and lectured in Padua, Italy

• He wrote On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543) which noted over 300 mistakes Galen made on the human anatomy including:

  • The lower jaw is in one part, not two

  • Veins in the heart did not lead to the liver

  • Men and women have the same number of ribs

Impact of Vesalius

• He encouraged physicians to focus on dissection rather than believing old theories

  • Some of these physicians later went on to correct Vesalius’ mistakes

• He popularised the study of anatomy and encouraged physicians rather than a surgeon to perform dissections

• He shared his work with his students at Padua, inspiring future anatomists like William Harvey

• He created anger among traditional physicians who believed in Galen’s work

  • They argued that the human anatomy must have changed from the Roman times

William Harvey

• Harvey was an English physician who, by 1618, was doctor to King James I

• Harvey showed an interest in anatomy and was taught Vesalius’ theory. He later:

  • Carried out public dissections as a lecturer of anatomy at the College of Physicians, London

  • Wrote An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals in 1628

• In his study, Harvey discovered that the heart worked like a mechanical fire pump

• The heart pushes the blood around the body through arteries and veins, linked together in the circulation system

  • Harvey proved this by tying a rope around a person’s arm - loosening the rope demonstrated how the blood flowed down into the forearm and then back up the arm

• He also disproved Galen’s theory that the liver created blood

  • He calculated that, if Galen was right, a human would need to make 1800 litres of blood a day to survive

Impact of Harvey

• Harvey's book on the human heart was a breakthrough in anatomy

• His work encouraged other scientists to use bodies to make more progress in understanding the body. For example, how was blood made?

• However, a lot of Renaissance physicians ignored his work as it had limited use in medical treatment

• Universities only began to use medical textbooks which contained his work from 1673

Hospitals & Pest Houses in Renaissance Britain

• The Renaissance led to changes in the organisations that cared for the sick

Hospitals

• In the 16th century, many still visited hospitals to gain food, shelter and prayer

• Records show that increasing numbers of patients were discharged from hospital

  • This means that they were becoming more successful at curing patients with wounds and treatable diseases

• Physicians had contracts to treat patients

  • Many hospitals had apothecaries on site to create remedies

• The dissolution of the monasteries (1536) led to the closure of many hospitals

  • Monks and nuns were no longer able to provide the day-to-day care required to keep them open

  • It took a long time for hospital levels to return to the amount there had been in medieval England

• Smaller, charity-run hospitals replaced the previous Church-owned facilities

  • The priority of a medieval hospital was to care for, not cure patients, through comfort and prayer

  • During the Renaissance, a greater focus was on attempting to cure patients using medical treatments

Pest Houses

• Based on medieval lazar houses, these hospitals admitted patients with infectious diseases that conventional hospitals turned away

• This allowed better care for infectious diseases and helped slow down the spread of these diseases

  • This demonstrated an increasing comprehension of how disease spreads from person to person

Care in the Home

• Wise women still played an important role in care

• Home was the most common place for people to receive medical treatment

  • The London College of Physicians punished women for practising medicine without a license

  • Women were not allowed to attend university to receive the medical training required to become a physician

• Many people still relied on herbal remedies made by women as they were cheaper than a trained apothecary or physician

AWAITING IMAGE

A diagram showing the continuity and change of hospitals in the Renaissance period