Life and Medical Sciences
The Renaissance. A time of luxury, works of art that will stand the test of time and an age that will be know as one of the most important parts of history. Engineering and art became a common part of life. It was a time of extravagant clothing, jewelry, art, stories, and engineering. When the thought of the Renaissance pops into a person’s head, they usually think of the above. Something that might not come into your head is medical sciences.
Contrary to popular belief, the Renaissance was a very important time in the advancement of medical sciences and treatment methods. People like Andreas Vesalius, Ambroise Pare, and Leonardo Da Vinci revolutionized the beliefs of many people of the time. Before, most people believed in Humorism, the belief that the life and health was a balance of four natural elements. The four elements were yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), phlegm (water), and blood (air). They believed that if there was an excess or deficiency in the humors, the natural balance in your body would be thrown off and you would become ill. To fix this, they would give you or drain the other elements in your body to restore balance and health. While this sounds odd nowadays, it was the main belief at the time and people couldn't prove it wrong because at the time, the Church did not allow people to dissect humans. The Church only allowed people to dissect animals so our knowledge at the time was mainly based off of cats, dogs, and other common animals, and as you know, while the body of an animal still has relatively the same function and basics in anatomy, cats and dogs aren't humans. While people knew some about anatomy, it wasn't accurate towards humans. However, one person dissected a person and made the first accurate depictions of the human anatomy. Andreas Vesalius. Vesalius was a professor at the University of Padua published an illustrated text of the human anatomy, including sketches of the brain and other main parts of the human anatomy. This was the beginning of the development of medical and life sciences and the foundation for the advancements of these sciences. |
Surgery was no easy job either. It was usually performed by barbers at the time who used the same tools as they did for hair. Cauterization with boiling oil was still the main way to close an open wound. Surgery was dangerous, excruciatingly painful, and not desired by most.
Ambroise Paré was a 16th-century French Surgeon who translated Vesalius’s work into French so that it would be available for battlefield surgeons. Paré also developed some of his own methods. He developed the method of tying arteries closed to stop bleeding rather than cauterizing the wound, a more effective method that makes it less likely to be infected and leaves a smaller mark. Paré replaced the oil used to cauterize a wound with a mixture of egg yolk, rose oil, and turpentine. Another achievement of this area was the theory that illnesses were caused by small invisible bodies outside of internal environment of the human body. This theory was developed by a Swiss alchemist, Paracelsus. Paracelsus believed that specific illnesses were caused by specific outside bodies (diseases, bacteria, viruses, pathogens) and those specific illnesses called for a unique cure. He was also one of the first to use mineral and chemical remedies to cure illnesses. Paracelsus believed that for every disease, “god provided a remedy”. With this belief in mind, when confronted with some sort of illness, he would experiment with remedies and potential cures to further his medical knowledge. The Renaissance was a period of serious medical and life science theoretical improvement. Knowledge found in this period is still used around the world today and set the base for the Scientific Revolution, one of the most important periods in the history of mankind. This was the beginning of a time in which people began to challenge their ancestors authority and knowledge and started to experiment for themselves. It was the base for which our modern medical knowledge was formed and arguably could be one of the most revolutionary times in history. |