Vesalius was one of the first important doctors to question Galen’s ideas. He proved Galen was wrong in some of his discoveries. He argued that doctors need to test Galen’s ideas rather than just accept them.
To highlight his discoveries of the human body, he published books. Such as ‘The Fabric of the Human body’. The interesting thing about his books was that he used artists to draw very detailed pictures of parts of the body. Greater detail, in fact, then in any books before. The book was made available in every medical school in Europe.
Pare also changed old ideas, though in a more practical sense. Pare started work as a surgeon in the army. This gave him a lot of time to study wounds and develop empathy for the people in need of treatment.
At this time, cauterisation of wounds was still being done. Pare wanted to find more ways of treating the patient so they wouldn’t feel as much pain. One day, when the boiling oil ran out, he used an ointment he had made beforehand. Surprisingly, this mixture healed a great number of wounded soldiers. From that point Pare vowed never to cauterise wounds again.
Another method Pare used was Ligature. He may have been the first person to learn how to tie an artery, although in a lot of cases this didn’t work successfully, this promoted the idea of stitches, and sometimes prevented blood loss.
Pare also did work with artificial limbs, he invented a kneeling peg leg, and foot prosthesis. Both feature engineering features still used today.
Harvey’s main interest was in the circulation of blood. A lot of his time was spent observing human and animal bodies and building up a detailed knowledge of the anatomy. He had already guessed that food was not made into blood by the liver, just from observation. He wanted to prove differently.
Harvey published a book titled ‘An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals’, this explained that the heart pumped blood around the body, and re-circulated. This, at the time, was a very controversial book, and lost Harvey a number of fans. But his discoveries turned out to be perfectly true, but very different from the old beliefs.
Harvey also worked out that humans and mammals must reproduce with the joining of the egg and the sperm, as no other theory made sense. The world assumed he was right, until the real discovery was made 200 years later.
In my opinion, the most important figure was Pare. This is because he practiced a number of different ways of surgery, which was made popular after his success. His substitutes for cauterization spread around the world, and practically stopped the regular use of cauterization in open wound surgery. He also began a lot of research into new things, such as his invention of artificial limbs. And his tying of arteries created a new study into stitching.
The least important figure was Vesalius, this is due to his lack of practical ideas. Although he was a cult figure through him arguing Galen’s ideas, he doesn’t appear to have made any revelations about the human body and surgery. I believe he encouraged and taught a great number of people about anatomy, and this started a new era of study. However, he did not introduce new ideas of interest to the world, such as Vesalius and Pare did. These are who I believe have the most, and least impact on Renaissance medicine.
