How much did medicine and treatment progress (change and continuity) between 1350 and 1750?
In medicine there were many things that changed and some that stayed the same between 1350 and 1750. Initially I will be looking at medicine and treatment in the Ancient World as a prelude to its importance during the Renaissance period, and also the influence it may have had in the Middle Ages.
During Ancient times, cure and prevention of illness and disease were not very well developed – people would blame their ill health on Gods, witches, demons or other supernatural causes. They had many theories, such as God punishing them for their sins.
The Ancient Greeks began to believe that illnesses had a natural cause – in about 400 BCE, a doctor named Hippocrates suggested that theories on supernatural causes were wrong, he came up with the idea of the Four Humours, saying that humans became ill when these humours became unbalanced. The Four Humours consisted of black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. He believed that an imbalance in the humours should be corrected – for example, if he thought that a patient had too much blood, he would carry out a blood-letting to balance out the humours.
He was one of the first doctors to observe his patients, and believed humans should lead simple and stable lives to keep them healthy and their humours balanced. Dissection was still looked down upon, and even forbidden, in these times, and therefore this held back medical studies from progressing further. People trained under these beliefs were recognised as doctors instead of priests. This was a huge development in medical history as beliefs in supernatural causes began to die out, and women who were not slaves were also allowed to train as do...
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... Royal Society. He discovered numerous things about matters such as light and gravity, and in 1703 was elected as president of the Royal Society.
In conclusion, a great number of changes to medicinal knowledge were made during the Renaissance, as well as building on ideas from previous times. These changes and re-discoveries made a huge contribution towards medical knowledge as we know it, although some of their theories may seem strange to us today. There were significant changes in people’s knowledge and understanding of the human body, but very little improvement in the treatment of illness. When there was a plague epidemic in London in 1665, the treatments used were similar to those used in 1348. This shows that the Renaissance was a time of great discovery as to the body and how it works, but very little discovery and application of medicinal treatments.
Those are some of the examples of how they might've been diagnosed, and how they should've been evaluation now. Except it probably doesn't help with the lack of doctors in the 1600s, but this is all basically
The medication in the Elizabethan Era was very basic.When horrible diseases came such as the bubonic plague which is also known as the Black Death. They medication back then wasn’t strong enough to fight off the symptoms(Philip Stubbles). The Physicians in this era had no idea where the bubonic plague came from and they were very skeptical about finding a cure. The Physicians started to study patients that had the plague, studying there blood flow to see what caused this disease(Linda Alcin 1).Even though they study their patients they still couldn’t find what had caused this disease the best answer that they came up was to bleed there
Did you know there was a time when infectious diseases like the common cold could kill you and your family? This was the Elizabethan era, probably the last time sickness became the “grimmy reaper” before modern medical advancements. With infectious diseases spreading and killing so many people, doctors became desperate. Because these doctors knew very little about medicine, they were completely willing to try experimental treatments on their patients (Alchin). Sadly, just about anybody with an infectious disease died.
Although he lived four centuries before the birth of Christ, a man named Hippocrates recorded the symptoms of diseases we still see to this day. Known as the “Father of Medicine” (Hippocrates), Hippocrates was an ancient physician who studied and recorded his observances of the body’s infections and physiology. He set forth the foundation for future physicians, and in doing so, is accredited for our knowledge of infectious diseases in earlier centuries. During this time however, many believed the earth and its inhabitants were composed of four general elements: air, water, fire, and dirt. They also believed that any one person who fell ill was being punished by the gods. As a foresighted thinker though, Hippocrates encouraged the idea that humans became ill due to natural causes. In that wisdom, he recorded all his observances of his patients and their illnesses, taking careful note of the bodily symptoms and their progression.
In the Renaissance, some aspects of medicine and doctors were still in a Dark Age. Outbreaks of disease were common, doctors were poor, medicine was primitive and many times doctors would kill a patient with a severe treatment for a minor disease! But, there were other sections where medicine and the use of medications improved greatly. This paper is written to illustrate the "light and dark" sides of medicine in the Renaissance.
One of the most widely known and important of the beliefs was the humours. It was believed that every living creature was composed of four elements, the humours. They were blood, phlegm, choler (or yellow bile), and melancholy (or black bile). It was believed that the overall total combination of these four elements determined the person’s characteristics. For example, a person with more blood than other humours was hot and wet in their nature, a person with more phlegm was cold and wet, a person with more choler was hot and dry, and a person with melancholy being the dominant humour was cold and dry. It was also believed that too much of a certain humour caused disease. That meant the removing or avoiding the dominant humour could cure any disease.
Beginning around 460 BC, the concept of humoralism emerged throughout the written works of Hippocrates. These early works, some of the only medical works of this detailed nature to survive this period, delineated one of the first ways scholars and physicians viewed the body and more importantly illness. Shaped by the Hippocratics’ version of humoralism and his own interpretations of their written works, Galen resolutely supported the fundamental four-element theory, the notion of the four humors, and the essential practice of healing by applying opposites by physicians. However, Galen’s education in anatomy proved an effective advance in his medical reasoning away from a non-ontological view of illness into a considerably more ontological and
During the Middle Ages, people didn’t have scientific equipment like microscopes to examine the organisms. So they concluded causes for the Black Death with unsupported evidence. Many physicians and doctors said it was in the air. It was inevitable to catch the Black Death as they claimed. Physicians describe the plague like a ‘tide of death’ (Addison et al, 2012.
Early Greek medicine was more of a divine matter. It was believed that the God Asclepius was the god of medicine. Priests would live at his temples and claimed they knew the ways of healing people. It was not until around 500 B.C., a Greek physician named Alcmaeon began to dissect animals to observe their skeleton, muscles, and brain. This was most probably the first ever to describe a phenomenon through objective observations. Through his observations, he believed that illness was due to an imbalance in the body. This idea prevailed for many centuries in the history of medicine.
Some modern medicines are based on the herbs used in medieval times. In the 13th century, Kings were believed to be able to cure illness, particularly the skin disease scrofula, just by touching the ill person. During the 14th century most of Europe was struck by a devastating disease called the Black Death, or bubonic plague. This disease was carried by fleas which lived on rats. When the rats died, the fleas jumped onto humans and spread the disease.
...rmacology became a practice, and medical experimentation common. As inspired by the printing press, medical books began being written. The years after the plague made way for modern medicine.
In modern medicine when an ailment arises it can be quickly diagnosed, attributed to a precise bacteria, virus, or body system, and treated with medication, surgery or therapy. During the time before rational medical thought, this streamlined system of treatment was unheard of, and all complaints were attributed to the will of the multitude of commonly worshiped Greek gods (Greek Medicine 1). It was during the period of Greek rationalism that a perceptible change in thought was manifested in the attitudes towards treating disease. Ancient Greece is often associated with its many brilliant philosophers, and these great thinkers were some of the first innovators to make major developments in astrology, physics, math and even medicine. Among these academics was Hippocrates, one of the first e...
Doctors believed the human body was part of the universe, so they used elements for each humour, “Yellow bile was the equivalent of fire. Phlegm was the equivalent of water. Black bile was the equivalent of earth and blood was the equivalent of air”(“Shakespearean and Elizabethan Medicine”). Also, because of their beliefs and lack of knowledge on serious medical conditions, most severe cases were not treated accurately. Some doctors believed if a person broke a bone, then it was never supposed to be used again because the accident was based from many sins of the soul (“Shakespearean and Elizabethan Medicine”).
Long ago, when humans believed in Zeus and were polytheistic, diseases and ailments were said to be a punishment from the gods. This time period, time of the ancient Greeks, had one man step out and go beyond belief and reached above a pinnacle in the works of a physician. This man created the start of a new belief, one where illnesses and diseases were not caused by some supernatural phenomenon, yet it be caused by the works of bad choices of humans instead.
Hippocrates was a Greek physician that left a legacy that existed during his lifetime in Classical Greece and continues today. His moral and ethical standards were the foundation of his teachings, along with his meticulous writings concerning the study of the human body. He firmly believed that poor health and disease were the result of a natural process that could be discovered and cured through careful clinical reasoning and observations. Hippocrates travelled throughout Greece teaching and describing disease symptoms, and taught doctors how to analyze and treat specific illnesses or diseases. Hippocrates’s accomplishments give him the respect from doctors and medical professionals around the world that continues even today.