Early modern Britain 1509–1745, Year 11: the Renaissance and treating disease, 1500–1700 (Health and the people option)

'On the Fabric of the Human Body'

HintIts detailed drawings came from his own dissections.

The whyIt was printed with accurate illustrations by skilled artists, so the same pictures could be studied all over Europe.

Galen had dissected animals, not humans

HintApes, pigs and dogs.

The whyFor example, Galen said that the human lower jaw was made of two bones, as it is in a dog. Vesalius showed that it is one. Many doctors at first refused to accept that Galen could be wrong.

Ligatures: threads tied round the vessels

HintThink of tying a knot.

The whyHe had earlier found, when his supply of boiling oil ran out on campaign, that gunshot wounds healed better with a soothing ointment. But without antiseptics, his threads could carry infection into the wound.

That the heart pumps blood round the body in a circuit

HintNothing is used up: it all comes back to where it started.

The whyGalen had taught that blood was made in the liver and used up by the body. Harvey used measurement and experiment to show that the amount of blood the heart pumps is far too great for that to be true.

It did not show what caused disease or how to cure it

HintKnowing how the body works is not the same as knowing how to mend it.

The whyDoctors went on bleeding their patients for another two hundred years. Harvey's work mattered more for the future: it showed that careful experiment could overturn ancient authority.

The printing press

HintBefore it, every copy of a book was written out by hand.

The whyPrinted books carried exact copies of text and pictures to readers across Europe. It is an example of the factor of communication helping medicine to change.

Quack

HintShort for an old word for someone who boasts loudly about their ointments.

The whySuch sellers flourished because trained physicians were expensive and often no more successful. Their remedies might be harmless, useless or poisonous.

Cinchona bark, the source of quinine

HintIt was brought to Europe by Jesuit missionaries.

The whyNew plants reached Europe as trade and exploration grew. Most treatment still relied on the four humours, herbal remedies handed down in families, and bleeding and purging.

1665

HintThe year before the Great Fire.

The whyAbout 100,000 people died in London, almost a quarter of its population. It was the last major outbreak of plague in England.

Shut everyone up inside the house

HintThe aim was to stop the sick from mixing with the healthy.

The whyThe door was painted with a red cross and the words 'Lord have mercy upon us', and the household was kept in for forty days. The City authorities also ordered dogs and cats to be killed. Action by the authorities was more organised than in 1348, though ideas about the cause had hardly changed.

Searchers

HintMostly women, hired by the parish.

The whyTheir reports were added up each week in the Bills of Mortality, which listed the number of deaths from each cause. These let the authorities, and Londoners, follow the spread of the epidemic.