Friday, 1 February 2008
Was the Renaissance Good for your Health?
Year 10 students here at Dixons City Academy have spent the last few lessons trying to answer the question ‘was the Renaissance good for your health?’ This question which is a constant source of historical debate produced some outstanding work and very convincing arguments (just see the video above and here). I now open this thread up to see if we can come to an overall judgment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
23 comments:
I think that the Renaissance when viewed contextually is a huge step forward from medieval times, this is most seen with the evidence that Zahra’s group brought to us about the use of ligatures etc.
However it context with other periods in time, the Romans for example, the renaissance was really only a small step in the right direction. Only through time, with much more research being done to eventually create as large a step forward as this period was, from medieval times.
I think that the Renaissance did improve medicine in certain areas such as anatomy, doctors free minded and their approach to medicine. Although some areas didn't really improve such as child birth and thoughts on spread of disease.
I think that overall, there was a huge improvement in medicine in comparison to the Medieval period, but soem areas were neglected, or ideas were put forward that were completely inaccurate.
Despite this, it was a step forward, and the doctors and scientists managed to be more liberal thinkers, and disprove the theories that really were wrong (Galen etc).
I think that, overall, the Renaissance brought forward a massive improvement in health and medicine. The renaissance period really was a re-birth of the classical era (Ancient Greeks/Romans), but not a large forward drive.
The liberal thinking of the doctors though managed to discredit the ideas of Galen, and thus, came up with their own ideas, some of which proved to be very accurate.
Also, the Renaissance was in complete contrast to the Medieval Period, when there was a completely unscientific way of conducting medicinal affairs.
I think the Renaissance wouldn’t hinder your health, but i don’t think it made people of the Renaissance as healthy as they could be, with all the theories they had e.g. Vesalius and Harvey had a theory but a lack of application, i think they were men AHEAD of their times; so i think people will start applying their theories later on in time. So in answer to the question, i think their was a reasonable level of good health in the Renaissance, but the knowledge they had that could have improved this level, will help people later on in time, rather than people of the Renaissance. I think i shared most opinion’s with David’s group.
I think the Renaissance period did improve. This is mainly because of the 3 famous doctors which were; Pare, Vesalius and Harvey. Vesalius made everyone relise that Galens ideas were wrong and his theories were better.
I think that renaissance health did improve from medieval health but it was no way near up to the standard of roman health.
Jonathan G
I think that the Renaissance period was better for your health than the Medieval times but the Romans were far more advanced than either period. Even the Greeks had better natural remedies and were more hygienic.
I think the Renaissance improved health slightly but this is only what you would expect. It did improve alot in terms of new ideas however these were never really practically applied so health did not actually imrpove greatly.
Overall i think the Renaissance did improve in terms of discoveries and new ideas through people like Harvey and Vesalius. However there was a lack of practical application meaning people's health improved only slightly.
I think that the Renaissance period improved medicine vastly, when comapared to the medieval period. I think the Renaissance improved in observation and recording, which helped,as people could look over their notes and view their previous treatments and diagnosis.I also think the Renaissance improved greatly in anatomy thanks to individuals such as Vesalius.
I Think Renaissance did combat a lot of errors made in the Medieval times but they did also make new errors which didn't help them that much.
Although, the new invention of the printing press and the ideas of drawing body parts and the publishing of new books are the real factors that helped the Renaissance
David Coverdale
:-)
i think the Renaissance improved a great deal overall in medicine as they made big steps forward with the discoveries by Pare- healing methods, Harvey- Heart and pumping blood around the body and Vesalius- Disection. Also they improved on Galens theories and moved forward from the old theories such as the four humors.
Even though they made many moderate improvements they still lacked in certain areas of which the main one being child birth.
I would say that the renaissance period was more about making new discoveries instead of making practical use of them.
Eventhough they lacked in some areas i would still say that the Renaissance had improved in health.
I think that the Renaissance did improve medicine in some aspects. These aspects include discoveries and anatomy. Three key individuals played an important role to take medicine to the next level (Vesalius, Paré and Harvey)
There was more progression and organisation to Medicine in the Renaissance period compared to the Medieval Period.
However some aspects of Medicine in the Renaissance times did not improve such as the thoughts on the spread of disease and Child Birth.
Overall I think that some aspects of the Renaissance was good for your health.
Mitesh Mistry
I think that the Renaissance did improve medicine in some aspects. These aspects include discoveries and anatomy. Three key individuals played an important role to take medicine to the next level (Vesalius, Paré and Harvey)
There was more progression and organisation to Medicine in the Renaissance period compared to the Medieval Period.
However some aspects of Medicine in the Renaissance times did not improve such as the thoughts on the spread of disease and Child Birth.
Overall I think that some aspects of the Renaissance was good for your health.
Mitesh Mistry
When looking at any time period, it is important to remember that we cannot make a conclusion for the people in a general context; as a whole – there are different groups of people living in the same society and so the breakthroughs, discoveries and changes made in the Renaissance time period will affect different groups of people in different ways.
In my opinion, Renaissance medicine improved health by two factors; firstly the licensing – if the ill person was treated by a licensed doctor or physician then it would be expected that their health would improve more than if that same person was treated by an unlearned family member. So the knowledge and experience of the healer would affect the improvement in health.
Secondly, the difference between the poor and the rich. I think if health did improve, it had a better chance of improving the health for the rich than the poor due to the availability of the healers who would often charge for their services.
Another point is that the Renaissance period was very much like the Greeks - they were a group of people with interests in their learning, looking at theories and making discoveries. I think they did improve health due to the amount of knowledge but it would take another set of people (i.e. such as the Romans after the Greeks) to apply these theories practically to improve medical treatments, surgeries and as a result public health.
Finite.
The Renaissance period was apparently a time of apparent ‘great change’ in medicine. However, I don’t believe this was the case completely because although religion was losing its grip and power over the people, developing a society with an openness to new ideas and even when faced with the intimidation of religion and risk of punishment key medical pioneers such as Vesalius, Harvey and Paré lead the way in the ‘re-birth’ of medicine by proving the religiously supported Galen’s ideas on anatomy wrong (stating that men and women did in fact have the same number of ribs, men did not have one less rib and that the lower jaw bone was made of one bone and not two) and Harvey who went against commonly believed ideas and once again went against the medical greats of ancient Roman and Greek Empires (Galen and Hippocrates) to prove the circularity system and how oxygenated blood from the lungs is pumped around the body by the ‘pump’ which is the heart and how the blood then goes back to the lungs and is ‘recycled’ and is never lost or burnt as a fuel meaning that bleeding was stopped as it was seen as dangerous. Finally, after twenty years on the front line as an army surgeon, Paré discovered pouring burning oil was unnecessarily painful for soldiers and discovered a more effective treatment with only a small amount of pain involved when experimenting with ingredients finding that egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine could be used to ‘cure the poison inside gunshot wounds’ and therefore save the soldiers’ lives in a much less risky and painful but more effective treatment. Another key reason for advance was also that the invention of the printing press allowed books/knowledge to be spread and never ‘lost’, accidently or deliberately from people opposed to the ideas and enticed more people to become literate and learn to read and be able to make their own conclusions on medicine which led to significant distrust in the church as people began to realise when they were dependant and needy of the church they were lied to and manipulated and incorrect ideas spread for generations during the Medieval and Renaissance time periods in history and people were enraged by this and lost trust in the church, also less bothered about offending the Gods as the monks had been deceitful and committed sins like this for generations before. However, despite ideas beginning to stand up and clever theories pulling through the Medieval ideas of the past (the Renaissance period began its first significant advance through translating and reading the teachings of the Arab Empire during the Medieval period) there were significant setbacks and sometimes recessions during the Renaissance period. Childbirth was still extremely dangerous due to the lack of trained professions and people trained to use the potentially dangerous equipment such as the forceps and sterilisation was not wildly used and inaccurate due to a lack of knowledge on bacteria and the spread of diseases which needs to be developed later with the invention of the microscope in the Nineteenth Century (as well as to invent vaccines to prevent some diseases rather than wait until it is necessary to spend time and money making diagnosis’s and curing the patient of the disease. Furthermore, I believe that religion still had some intimidating factors and so even more research and discoveries was held back from the public eye and held back progression during the Renaissance period and held back the patients from receiving better quality health care and treatments to illness and disease etc. and this lead to preventable diseases becoming huge epidemic such as the plague when it hit again although this time some clever preventative measures had been put into place to stop such rapid spread and public health was improved considerably since Medieval times in order to create a much cleaner town with much less water, air and dirt borne diseases and illnesses which improved health greatly amongst people in the town due to cleaner water, air, streets, the banishment and killing of many stray and flea-ridden, plague-carrying animals and the banning of the sale of rotten putrid meat although some problems still persisted such as pollution of the water from dumping human waste and rubbish here, a short term solution to a long term problem. Overall, I think that the discoveries of the Renaissance would not necessarily hinder your health although it is only a small progression which is what you would expect as time and technology moves on, there is no shocking or great advancement or progression but this may have been different if the clever theories had been put to the test and not just left in theory textbooks but actually applied first hand to the patients so they could reap the benefits of hard work and research and so could the doctors (in money and fame etc.). The doctors were much more liberal thinkers and gave much more accurate answers to questions and discredited the inaccurate ideas and ineffective treatments of Galen and Hippocrates and improved their precision in training and more accurate equipment in abundance in addition to improving scientific method and making it much more accurate in contrast to the more “What” thinkers of the Medieval period instead of the “Why” and “How” thinkers that begun to arise during the medical Renaissance; however it is a shame most of these ideas were never used in practical application. Overall, I believe although the Renaissance period held a significant advance not much of it was forward as many ideas once forgotten/lost/discredited from the Roman and Greek era were beginning to be studied again and some were proved right/wrong although many of the practical benefits of all of the research was left to the next generations of people after the Renaissance to reap but this may improve with more technology, thinking becoming even more liberal and finally the improved theories of how disease spreads so that diseases and illnesses can be thought much more accurately about on cellular level and sterilisation and the applying of bandages/ligatures can be much safer/more effective and less at risk of the spread of disease. The medical Renaissance brought medical great things but the fact there wasn’t a great leap for factors regarding medicinal practices, treatments and knowledge on the anatomy (arguably there was but this can be seen as “Just catching up to the Roman and Greek higher levels of thinking) is mainly down to the lack of practical application; try making a bird learn how to fly by banning the use of its wings and reading from a textbook and after the experiment ask yourself the question “How effective was this in teaching the bird how to fly?”; the same principle applies with the progression of Renaissance medicine, the advance was in the right direction but with more firsthand experience, hands on training and practical application so much more would have been gained in the medical field of knowledge to the doctors receiving more exciting work and profits, the researches fame, recognition and money and most of all at the heart of the debate: Increased sanitation and better public health to increase the welfare and wellbeing of people in the towns and cities and the quality of healthcare/treatment (whether surgery or herbal remedies or even the beginning of more, fairly simple, but artificial laboratorial medicines) and possibly surgery conducted of/on the patient; the most important factor in the argument “Did Health Care Improve During The Renaissance Time Period?” which overall in conclusion, I believe they did but there were still some aspects of recession and even the progress was only beginning to place them ‘on par’ with an ancient civilisation from over twelve centuries before just showing how in the Renaissance medical healthcare for patients improved but in the bigger picture the Renaissance was only coming to terms with ideas, procedures, treatments and theories which were being mastered and developed in the ancient civilisations of over a millennium previous; the ideas I agreed with most and the most convincing argument put together I believe was with Rida’s group as they had an excellent and informative but very visual presentation and movie which raised the key issues but in a more interesting and original way and helped me understand the argument around the debate of whether health care improved or not during the Renaissance period.
Overall, threwout the Rennaissance, Medacine improved because of the different doctors coming up with new ideas and the fact that they went against many of Galen's theories, which were over 1500 years old and mostly wrong.
The renaissance medicine did improve because the 3 famous doctors made everything better. They found out all of the important information that we know today.
i think that the renaisannce was very inportant in medicine becouse it contributed a lot of great idias such as the descovary of the heart pumping blood around the body
When we compare the Renaissance to other times in History, such as the Medieval Times, we can see that there were very little differences in terms of the level of progress made. The people of the Renaissance were hit by the plague, just like the people of the Medieval Times before them. The treatments the people came up with were almost the same, and the new ideas of the doctors of the time could do nothing to prevent the spread of disease. This similarity clearly shows that the Renaissance generally made just as much progress as any other era in history, hence making ‘only as much progress as we would expect’.
Before the Renaissance, Greek and Roman ideas had been lost. This meant that the Europeans were already behind in terms of medical progress. We can see this when we compare them to other civilisations, for example the Muslim Arabs of the Middle East. The Renaissance was just a ‘rebirth’ of these ideas – it was a time when the people ‘caught up’ with the level of knowledge they were expected to have by this stage in history.
People during the Renaissance had begun to travel. They went to other countries and picked up other peoples’ ideas about Science and medicine. So the people of the Renaissance were receiving a great deal of help from other nations and civilisations, which they then adopted into their own lives. In fact, there is a growing consensus amongst historians that Harvey was not actually the first person to discover the circulatory system, and evidence has now reached the media’s attention that it was actually discovered by the famous Arab Doctor Ibn Sina. So considering the amount of help the Renaissance had from other, more advanced civilisations, we can see that the Renaissance made only as much progress as we would have expected it to have made.
ZAHRAH MADIHAH HUSSAIN - 10C
i think that the renaissance was a big step forward however they were still missing some vital thing in which they need to progress in medicine e.g. anerstetics
The renaissance was helped mainly by medical geniuses such as Vesalius who discovered things like the heart worked like a pump, pare who discovered things like and harvey who improved warfare medicine. However, it may also have been hindered by beliefs such as bad smells caused the plague.
Post a Comment