The Renaissance

Mr McDonald

Presentation Objectives:

1. Examine what the Renaissance meant

2. What this did for science, art etc

3. How this can be seen to affect medicine

The Renaissance

• Renaissance means ‘re-birth’.• It describes a new age of culture,

science, art, almost anything that involved the ability to think back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

• That is the key point; the Renaissance was about looking back to how they did things not what they did.

Enquiry

• The people of the Renaissance wanted to look back at the ancient texts – see the work of Galen.

• Some of these were being seen after a long absence.

• Scholars wanted to follow the ancient style of enquiry and observation – see art and medicine

Art

One is from a Medieval Midwives textbook, the other by Leonardo Da Vinci. See how art was based on observation in the Renaissance.

Art

Artists drew what they observed and became better at understanding movement in the human body.

This helped when people like Vesalius created new medical texts. Art allowed better understanding.

Religion

• One event in the Renaissance for religion was the Reformation.

• This was when the Church which dominated medieval life underwent a big upheaval.

• Protestants wanted an end to the power of the church and end to the way in which it was so unquestioning.

Religion

• The church although still powerful did not have the authority it had previously.

• The Reformation (The creation of the Protestant Church in northern Europe) created a limiting effect on what the church could order people to do.

• Evidence to support this can be seen in the way that more dissections occurred.

Technology

• Developments such as the Printing Press (by Johann Gutenberg in 1454) meant that new ideas could be spread faster with less emphasis on hand written versions. This again limited the power of the church as now, people did not need the church to replicate books which it had previously done.

Question!

• Paracelsus said ‘Galen is a liar and a fake. Avicenna is a kitchen master. They are good for nothing. You will not need them. Reading never made a doctor. Patients are the only books. You will follow me.’

• He then decided to burn the books of Galen and Avicenna!

• By the end of his first year teaching in Basel he had to leave pronto!

Question!

• It does not look like he had the ability to question but in effect he did. He challenged the traditional ideas and it was the Renaissance that allowed him.

• Of course you could say that people like Paracelsus and Copernicus (who said the earth went around the sun) made the Renaissance.

• Anyway questioning was a big thing!

How did this affect Medicine?

• Art, the Printing Press, the pump (think Harvey) all made medicine (especially anatomy) to progress however it was the overall theme of the Renaissance that made this change possible.

• One change on it’s own would not have amounted to much but because of the overall theme of change and question the impact became greater than all the parts combined!

Factors for change

• Change in power of the Church• Change in development of art• Developments in science and technology• More ability to question and enquire• Not all these however were straight away. It

took time and persistence to make such dramatic changes.