Essay On Anatomy During The Renaissance

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During the Renaissance health and medicine changed considerably . There were many important changes to the understanding of anatomy and surgery. Important doctors and surgeons discovered different ways of understanding to body and different ways of operating. For example how Vesalius in the 15th century dissected the human body to learn more about anatomy. During this essay I will investigate how far health and medicine improved during the Renaissance by focusing on anatomy and surgery. There was a massive change in the understanding of anatomy during the Renaissance. Claudius Galen was a Greek doctor who became the most respected doctor in the Roman Empire. He discovered the importance of understanding the functions of the parts of the body. In Galen 's time the dissections of the human body were forbidden for …show more content…

Harvey had a huge impact on health and medicine because his discoveries helped in future life, and without him blood transfusions wouldn 't be possible today. He saved no lives but he showed other people how to save lives. Another important change in health and medicine was in the understanding of surgery. Ambroise Pare was a surgeon who followed Vesalius’s findings for example books and notes. Pare became a more significant member of the community when he was recruited to assist amputations on the fields of the war in the army. In 1536 Pare discovered that the boiling oil was way too painful and suddenly he remembered that in the Roman Period they used ointment. He applied the ointment to the patient 's wounds which contains egg yolks, oil of roses and turpentine. That night he was very worried about his patients’ health and if they would survive or not. He used catgut ligatures and silk threads to tie arteries during amputations instead of cauterising the wound. This was very effective but what Pare didn 't know was that the catgut and the silk threads were not sterile and infections often happened . Pare’s book ‘Work’s of surgery’ was published