Was the Medical Renaissance an Important Period in Medical History
Was the Medical Renaissance an important period in medical history?
The renaissance period was the rebirth of medical research after the middle lack of the development during the middle ages. This was an important period because of new discoveries about anatomy. These new breakthroughs began with Andreas Vesalius challenging the great Roman doctor, Galen’s ideas towards the human body. Two major mistakes that Vesalius found in Galen’s work were that the human jaw had one bone, whereas Galen wrote that it had two. Vesalius’ other idea that challenged Galen was regarding the septum in the heart. Galen wrote that it had small holes in however when Vesalius tested this he found that there were no holes. Vesalius was able to prove this because by this time the Christian church had less control over what people did so dissections on human bodies wasn’t considered to be as bad as it was previously. Vesalius wrote down his findings in a book called The Fabric of the Human Body which was spread around Europe quickly because of the invention of the printing press. His challenges to Galen’s work also led to others thinking that Galen may have been wrong in other areas so more and more people began to challenge his work. However, when he first started his work many people found it difficult to disagree with Galen so he was unpopular amongst people a lot of the time.
There were also important discoveries about the way the body worked during the renaissance period. William Harvey, who was an English physician, came up with a theory that suggested that blood was pumped around the body by the heart and not produced regularly and used as fuel like Galen said before. Harvey, like Vesalius, also did many dissections to help him prove his theories were true. He did his dissections mainly on human corpses but he also did some dissections on cold blooded animals like lizards because he knew their hearts beat slower than humans. This meant he could study the circulation of blood
The renaissance period was the rebirth of medical research after the middle lack of the development during the middle ages. This was an important period because of new discoveries about anatomy. These new breakthroughs began with Andreas Vesalius challenging the great Roman doctor, Galen’s ideas towards the human body. Two major mistakes that Vesalius found in Galen’s work were that the human jaw had one bone, whereas Galen wrote that it had two. Vesalius’ other idea that challenged Galen was regarding the septum in the heart. Galen wrote that it had small holes in however when Vesalius tested this he found that there were no holes. Vesalius was able to prove this because by this time the Christian church had less control over what people did so dissections on human bodies wasn’t considered to be as bad as it was previously. Vesalius wrote down his findings in a book called The Fabric of the Human Body which was spread around Europe quickly because of the invention of the printing press. His challenges to Galen’s work also led to others thinking that Galen may have been wrong in other areas so more and more people began to challenge his work. However, when he first started his work many people found it difficult to disagree with Galen so he was unpopular amongst people a lot of the time.
There were also important discoveries about the way the body worked during the renaissance period. William Harvey, who was an English physician, came up with a theory that suggested that blood was pumped around the body by the heart and not produced regularly and used as fuel like Galen said before. Harvey, like Vesalius, also did many dissections to help him prove his theories were true. He did his dissections mainly on human corpses but he also did some dissections on cold blooded animals like lizards because he knew their hearts beat slower than humans. This meant he could study the circulation of blood