Renaissance: causes, diagnosis, preventions, treatments

Question 1

Give 9 things people thought caused disease in the Renaissance.

Answer 1

1. God + Satan
2. Miasma
3. 4 Humours (although well discredited by 1700)
4. Transference
5. Constitution
6. Chemical imbalances (Paracelsus)
7. Miasma = seeds (Francestro: “On Contagion”)
8. Disease belonging to families (Sydenham: “observations medicae”)
9. “Animalcules” (Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek: Philosophical Transactions)

Question 2

What was the belief of transference and how was disease treated according to this?

Answer 2

It was believed that disease was transferred to objects, not spread. For example, warts were rubbed with onions and ill people slept in the same room as a sheep.

Question 3

What was the belief of constitution?

Answer 3

The belief that someone being small/weak explained premature death.

Question 4

Did Renaissance people believe God caused illness as much as they did in the Middle Ages?

Answer 4

God’s role in illness was intitially still widely believed due to the power of the Catholic Church.

Over the period, the Catholic Church gradually lost power as Protestantism spread, allowing in more rational thought.

As a result, “unchallengeable” ideas from Catholicism were disproved, so its authority was further eroded.

Question 5

What continuity was there, in Renaissance treatment, from the Middle Ages?

Answer 5

Bleeding, sweating and purging were still popular humoural treatments.
Herbal remedies remained popular, but people began trying to match remedies with the disease. For example, yellow herbs, such as saffron, were used to treat jaundice.

Question 6

What change was there, in Renaissance treatment, from the Middle Ages?

Answer 6

1. Transference-related treatments
2. Iatrochemistry (chemical cures) + alchemy began to replace humoural and herbal treatments, e.g. Pharmacopaeia Londinensis
3. New herbal remedies - more overseas exploration

Question 7

What new herbal remedies were introduced to Britain in the Renaissance, as a result of overseas exploration?

Answer 7

Coffee and cinchona bark from Peru. The latter could battle malaria for as long as it was taken.

Question 8

What was iatrochemistry?

Answer 8

Chemical cures.

Question 9

Give an example of a book which related to iatrochemistry.

Answer 9

The Pharmacopoeia Londinensis detailed 122 chemical treatments, e.g. mercury & antimony, which allegedly sweated out illnesses.

Question 10

What continuity was there, in Renaissance preventions, from the Middle Ages?

Answer 10

1. Humoural attitudes remained. (However, people had things ‘in moderation’ to avoid an imbalance and therefore disease.)
2. Avoiding miasma (e.g. burning tar during the Great Plague).
3. Regimen Sanitatis preventions/treatments.

Question 11

What change was there, in Renaissance preventions, from the Middle Ages?

Answer 11

1. Quarantining the sick
2. Pest houses
3. People having things “in moderation”
4. Bathing became less popular as it was thought to spread syphilis: a degression.
5. Purifying air (miasma) became more relevant (home owners were fined for not cleaning the streets outside their houses).

Question 12

What continuity was there, in Renaissance diagnosis, from the Middle Ages?

Answer 12

1. Theory of opposites/humoural diagnosis
2. Astrology

Question 13

What change was there, in Renaissance diagnosis, from the Middle Ages?

Answer 13

Urine charts were no longer used: a degression.