Medicine in Medieval Ages and Renaissance PDF

Medicine in Medieval Ages and Renaissance Assoc.Prof.Dr.E. Elif Vatanoglu-Lutz  Medieval Medicine in West In the Early Middle Ages, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, standard medical knowledge was based chiefly upon surviving Greek and Roman texts, preserved in monasteri...

Medicine in Medieval Ages and Renaissance Assoc.Prof.Dr.E. Elif Vatanoglu-Lutz  Medieval Medicine in West In the Early Middle Ages, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, standard medical knowledge was based chiefly upon surviving Greek and Roman texts, preserved in monasteries and elsewhere. Many simply placed their hopes in the church and God to heal all their sicknesses.  Ideas about the origin and cure of disease were not purely secular, but were also based on a world view in which factors such as destiny, sin, and astral influences played as great a part as any physical cause. The efficacy of cures was similarly bound in the beliefs of patient and doctor rather than empirical evidence, so that remedia physicalia (physical remedies) were often subordinate to spiritual intervention.  Monasteries Monasteries developed not only as spiritual centers, but also centers of intellectual learning and medical practice. Locations of the monasteries were secluded and designed to be self- sufficient, which required the monastic inhabitants to produce their own food and also care for their sick. Prior to the development of hospitals, people from the surrounding towns looked to the monasteries for help with their sick. A combination of both spiritual and natural healing was used to treat the sick. Herbal remedies, known as Herbals, along with prayer and other religious rituals were used in treatment by the monks and nuns of the monasteries.  Humours The underlying principle of medieval medicine was the theory of humours. This was derived from the ancient medical works, and dominated all western medicine until the 19th century. The theory stated that within every individual there were four humours, or principal fluids - black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood, these were produced by various organs in the body, and they had to be in balance for a person to remain healthy. Too much phlegm in the body, for example, caused lung problems; and the body tried to cough up the phlegm to restore a balance. The balance of humours in humans could be achieved by diet, medicines, and by blood- letting, using leeches.  Mental diseases….witch hunting!!!  Medicine in the Middle Ages was rooted in Christianity through not only the spread of medical texts through monastic tradition but also through the beliefs of sickness in conjunction with medical treatment and theory. The church taught that God sometimes sent illness as a punishment, and that in these cases, repentance could lead to a recovery. This led to the practice of penance and pilgrimage as a means of curing illness. In the Middle Ages, some people did not consider medicine a profession suitable for Christians, as disease was often considered God-sent. The ultimate healer in this interpretation is of course God, but medical practitioners cited both the bible and Christian history as evidence that humans could and should attempt to cure diseases. Medieval Diseases Pestis : They thought the reason is the toxins that Jewsih people threw at the streets…They were burning Jewish people in order to take revenge…. Special pestis costume of the physicians….  Lepra The disease was extremely common in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Reaction to the disease was complicated. Some people believed it was a punishment for sin, but others saw the suffering of lepers as similar to the suffering of Christ. Because lepers were enduring purgatory on earth, they would go directly to heaven when they died, and were therefore closer to God than other people. Those who cared for them or made charitable donations believed that such good works would reduce their own time in purgatory and accelerate their journey to heaven.  Important step: Salerno Medical School (Italian: Scuola Medica Salernitana) was a late Medieval medical school, the first and most important of its kind. Situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea in the south Italian city of Salerno.The first secular medical school….basic curriculum: 3 years logic, 5 years medicine… (Padua, Bologna, Napoli,Paris,Oxford Universities are opened after Salerno…)  Translation Schools… In 1085 , Christians took the city of Toledo in Spain from Arabs back. They founded a translation school in Toledo in 1130 and started to translate the literature of famous Islam scholars into Latin.This was a very big step preparing for Renaissance.  Rise of Renaissance (XV – XVI. cc) Main reasons are, discoveries of new lands and new commercial ways ; economical comfort, with the discovery of printery made the circulation of knowledge and books in Europe easier…. XIII. century : ‘Church can not be the only religous authority, everybody should read the holly book in their houses’ !!.XIV. century : R.Bacon: ‘Science is not complete as the dogmatics claim’....!!!  Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe, likely independently of Aristarchus of Samos, who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier. The publication of Copernicus' model in his book ‘On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres’, just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making an important contribution to the Scientific Revolution. Giordano Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model. He was killed by the Church in 1608. Galileo is a central figure in the transition from natural philosophy to modern science and in the transformation of the scientific Renaissance into a scientific revolution.  4 Basic Steps of Medicine in Renaissance : 1.Modern drugs (Paracelsus) 2.Anatomy (A.Vesalius) 3.Blood circulation(W.Harvey) 4.Microscope (A. van Leeuwenhoek) Paracelsus (Philippus von Hohenheim)  Paracelsus considered himself an alchemist, however his ideas on poison led to the introduction of chemistry into medicine in the sixteenth century. Although he was not fully appreciated until his death, medicine would be a different field without his contributions.  Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), who called himself Paracelsus, is the man who pioneered the use of minerals and other chemicals in medicine. Mercury, lead, arsenic and antimony—poisons to most— were cures in his view. "In all things there is a poison, and there is nothing without a poison. It depends only upon the dose whether a poison is poison or not..." Although most of his prescriptions have fallen out of favor, arsenic is still used to kill certain parasites.  Andreas Vesalius Father of Anatomy (1514, born in Brussels )  Andreas Vesalius was a 16th-century Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. In his book,he showed all the mistakes of Galen who was thought as the main authority for centuries. He was born in Brussels, which was then part of the Habsburg Netherlands. He was professor at the University of Padua and later became Imperial physician at the court of Emperor Charles V.  In 1539,the Judge of Padua Penal Court, Marcantonio Contarini ,who was a personal friend of Vesalius, started to give the bodies of prisoners after the death penalty to Dr.Vesalius. This gave the opportunity to Vesalius to make many comparative dissections. His book emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the "anatomical" view of the body, seeing human internal functioning as a result of an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs arranged in three-dimensional space. His book contains drawings of several organs on two leaves. This allows for the creation of three-dimensional diagrams by cutting out the organs and pasting them on flayed figures. This was in stark contrast to many of the anatomical models used previously, which had strong Galenic/Aristotelean elements, as well as elements of astrology.  William Harvey Father of Blood Circulation (1578, England )  He was the first known physician to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the heart. De Motu Cordis (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood): Published in 1628 , the 72 page Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus contains the matured account of the circulation of the blood. Opening with a dedication to King Charles I, the quarto has 17 chapters which give a perfectly clear and connected account of the action of the heart and the consequent movement of the blood around the body in a circuit.  He made many experiments on dogs,pigs and fish. At the time of Harvey's publication, Galen had been an influential medical authority for several centuries. Galen believed that blood passed between the ventricles by means of invisible pores. According to Galen's views, the venous system was quite separate from the arterial system, except when they came in contact through the unseen pores. Arabic scholar Ibn al-Nafis had disputed aspects of Galen's views, providing a model that seems to imply a form of pulmonary circulation in his Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon (1242). Al-Nafis stated that blood moved from the heart to the lungs, where it mixed with air, and then back to the heart, from which it spread to the rest of the body. Harvey's discoveries inevitably and historically came into conflict with Galen's teachings and the publication of his treatise De Motu Cordis incited considerable controversy within the medical community.  Unfortunately,the value of Harvey’s work could only be understood 50 years after his death. Many scholars in the medical world called him with the word ‘circulator’ which means sharlatan in Italien.  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Father of Microscope (24 October 1632 - 26 August 1723,Holland)  Turkish Journal of Biochemistry – Türk Biyokimya Dergisi 2016; 41(1): 000–000 Education Sector Letter to the Editor – 93585 Emine Elif Vatanoğlu-Lutz*, Ahmet Doğan Ataman Medicine in philately: Antony Van Leeuwenhoek, the father of microscope Pullardaki tıp: Antony Van Leeuwenhoek, mikroskobun kaşifi  Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch businessman and scientist in the Golden Age of Dutch science and technology. A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and one of the first microscopists and microbiologists. Van Leeuwenhoek is best known for his pioneering work in microscopy and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology as a scientific discipline. Raised in Delft, in the Dutch Republic, van Leeuwenhoek worked as a draper in his youth and founded his own shop in 1654. He became well recognized in municipal politics and developed an interest in lensmaking. In the 1670s, he started to explore microbial life with his microscope. After developing his method for creating powerful lenses and applying them to the study of the microscopic world, van Leeuwenhoek introduced his work to his friend, the prominent Dutch physician Reinier de Graaf. Dr. De Graaf wrote to Royal Society in London about the work of Leuwenhook. Van Leeuwenhoek's work fully captured the attention of the Royal Society, and he began corresponding regularly with the society regarding his observations. At first he had been reluctant to publicize his findings, regarding himself as a businessman with little scientific, artistic, or writing background, but de Graaf urged him to be more confident in his work.By the time van Leeuwenhoek died in 1723, he had written some 190 letters to the Royal Society, detailing his findings in a wide variety of fields, centered on his work in microscopy. He only wrote letters in his own colloquial Dutch; he never published a proper scientific paper in Latin. He strongly preferred to work alone, distrusting the sincerity of those who offered their assistance.  Van Leeuwenhoek's main discoveries are: infusoria (protists in modern zoological classification), in 1674 bacteria, (e.g., large Selenomonads from the human mouth), in 1683 [note 6][note 7] the vacuole of the cell spermatozoa, in 1677 the banded pattern of muscular fibers, in 1682  By the end of his life, van Leeuwenhoek had written approximately 560 letters to the Royal Society and other scientific institutions concerning his observations and discoveries. Even during the last weeks of his life, van Leeuwenhoek continued to send letters full of observations to London.  Thank You....