How far did prevention and treatment change between 1500 and 1700? Upcoming assessment –factual test based on Renaissance changes. Using graph. Failure to complete graph and show meaningful studying will result in break time work to plug the gaps. Learn your facts!!

Treatment: What changed? Transference – rubbing something against the wound to transfer the disease e.g. vegetable. Herbal remedies changed to include colour e.g. yellow herbs to treat jaundice or wine for red rashes. New herbs introduced to England due to exploration e.g. sarsaparilla from the New World, ipecacuanha from Brazil used for dysentery. Cinchona from Peru for malaria. Introduction of alchemy into medical treatments – chemicals to treat illness rather than herbs. In 1618, Pharmacopeia Londinesnsis included many remedies including salt, metals and minerals as well as mercury. This could be used as purging to encourage vomiting. Very popular as apparently cured Louis XIV of France from typhoid in 1657.

Prevention: What changed? Still the same belief of practicing moderation (not eating a lot of rich, fatty foods or being too lazy) Still a belief in being born weak or small causing illness. Cleanliness still important – although less people bathed in public bathes due to syphilis (actually spread as a STI due baths being brothels). Rather than bathe, people kept clean during this period by rubbing themselves with linen and changing clothes regularly. Regimen Sanitatis still practised. New idea of weather causing disease, so some moved away to warmer climates. New technology like barometers and thermometers were used to measure and record weather to see if it synced up with disease. Still a belief in miasma – projects were set up to drain swamps and bogs. Removing sewage and picking up rubbing was used as a punishment for criminals. People were fined for not cleaning the streets outside their house.

Medical Care: What changed? Apothecaries continued to mix remedies and barber surgeons continued to carry out simple operations. Change was apothecaries were organised into a guild system which meant they would be trained through apprenticeships. They would learn from experiences journeymen. Education for surgeons increased considerably – with new wars being fought with new weaponry, new wounds meant surgeons had to learn and develop to deal with them. Both had to possess licences to be able to practice. Physicians were still trained at universities, but there were still exposed to outdates ideas. Learning was still based on classical texts written in Latin. However as new ideas like iatrochemistry and anatomy became popular, many doctors were inspired to challenge the old ways. Although dissection was allowed, bodies were hard to come by. Very few universities had an anatomy theatre, as they did not think a physician needed to know about an anatomy. Access to new books more widely available.

Hospitals: What changed? Hospitals were no longer all about prayer and shelter – some were beginning to treat wounds and curable diseases like rashes and fevers. Physicians now worked in hospitals, they would visit twice a day and obersve symptoms/prescribe treatments. Hospitals now had their own pharmacies and apothecaries to mix medicines. After Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, many hospitals were forced to close down. As all monasteries were shut down and raided by Henry’s soldiers, many hospitals were forced to shut down. Some smaller hospitals filled the gaps. Pest houses introduced – hospitals which specialised in one disease only (AKA pest house, plague house or poxhouse) As hospitals would now take in someone who was contagious, these were a solution to this. Community care still important.

Targets 9-7 Create a Venn diagram (templates provided by your teacher) to show the key differences and similarities between treatment, prevention and medical care of the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Targets 6-5 Make a list of all the new treatments, preventions and medical care described on pp.49-56. Highlight with two colours: Brand new Newer versions of old treatments. For each, explain how. Unlicensed Targets 4-1 Underneath these headings, identify what changed during the Renaissance: Treatments Preventions Medical Care

Checkpoint: Can you explain the reasons why medicine began to change during this period? Can you describe the key ideas that changed during the Renaissance?

Expand your knowledge Listen to this 7 minute lecture from a history teacher on Renaissance medicine! Don’t worry about if you don’t know about Harvey and Vesalius, we will be studying them next lesson! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APhYp2LVoAE