Was the Medical Renaissance An Important Period In Medical History
The Renaissance period was an important time in the progress of medical history. Historians consider that the Middle Ages came to an end when many new and important ideas swept through Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This new period was then known ad the Renaissance. Many people of the time believed that great progress was being made in many fields because the love of knowledge had been re-born.
The Renaissance was an important period because discoveries about anatomy were being made. This was a period of time in which many dramatic changes were taking place in the study of anatomy. The single most important figure in this great change is known by his Latin name, Vesalius. Vesalius was lucky enough to have received an excellent medical education and by the time he became a professor at the great Italian medical university, he was only twenty-three years of age. He had access to a regular supply of dead bodies for dissection which helped his study even more. As he carried out more and more dissections he began to have his first doubts about Galen and he concluded that Galen had only carried out dissections on animals. He noticed things such as the human lower jaw was different from Galen’s description. Vesalius also wrote a comprehensive book about human anatomy. The development of the printing press ensured that books could be produced quicker and distributed to universities and hospitals throughout Europe. Also, the artists who provided the drawings for these books were allowed to be present at dissections meaning that they could produce detailed and accurate illustrations to accompany the written descriptions.
