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Example research essay topic: 14 Th Century Scientific Revolution - 1,991 words

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A) In source A we are looking at a private picture from a 14 th century manuscript. First of all we notice that this is a wealthy man being treated because you had to pay for treatment, hospitals were scarce and uncleanly, so he would have been treated in his home. The treatment by two lat sisters (nuns of study); the invalid could have had lay brothers (monks of study) Source A shows the nuns were sought after. The picture describes the types of medical instruments and practises used by women. Firstly the two lay sisters who are treating him are clean, with their hair tied back with one sister holding a sterilised basin. I can tell this as the artist has over exaggerated the basins shininess.

One sister can read as she has a book of remedies. She must have seen the man and diagnosed his illness, showing her knowledge of symptoms. The sister must also have knowledge of herbs and drugs. In the picture it looks to me as there is one sister with doctrine knowledge, (the one reading), and one with nursing knowledge (the one with the bowl).

This shows women had experience of both medical sides in the 14 th century. There is not much written about the role of women in that period, but we do know that women were important in local areas. There is also some evidence of a woman doctor in the Middle Ages known as Trotula of Salerno. Not only did Trotula study, she taught medicine in the Salerno University and wrote a book called Diseases of women. Trotula was not alone. There was a women named Calendar Constant who was noted in 1423 for lecturing in medicine.

This was good, but women doctors tended to come from very eastern European cities where the Renaissance started, like Venice and Rome. Very few women were allowed to study doctrine in England and France. Many women could not read so this was a problem. In the 16 th century women who could read and were good at herbal remedies suffered, due to the witch hunts when many intelligent local women were seen as witches and burnt or hung.

Also, like it says in source B, new and expensive cures had been developed, while new drugs were imported as a result of trade between Europe and India, China and the New World. These drugs were handled by merchants and businessmen, surgeons and apothecaries. They were not easily available for women to use. They were obtained by men, handled by men, and sold to men. The traditional medicine-woman was starting to be pushed out of medicine. A medicine womens remedies were far less successful than the new drugs now available on the market.

There were some very good drugs that reached Europe but also a lot of bad drugs which had no effect. One of the good ones was quinine which came from the bark of the cinchona tree (Some call it Jesuits bark, because they were the first to supply quinine in England). It was a drug used to cure malaria. Mastic was believed to be a cure for cholera, it helped but did not cure it. Aloe was used to make laxative pills.

Europe had alcohol as its depressants but lots of new stimulants were brought back from the new world such as tea and coffee, which contained high amounts of caffeine. Cocoa and sugar cane, were brought back from S. America which contained high amounts of sugar and caffeine. One plant was discovered which is infamous, - the opium poppy- which was used to make heroine (It is now used to make cocaine). It was used by wealthy people, Queen Victoria used it to numb her menstrual pains. The biggest discovery of all had to be tobacco which was thought to cure everything and at one point was believed to revive the deceased if used in time.

Medical training became more formalised, and through most of Europe, surgery continued to be taught by apprenticeship and organised in guilds. Women were excluded from these guilds, and could not attend universities, so their status as healers declined. Also at this time, it became fashionable for male doctors to perform midwifery. It was not long before women were forced out of their traditional role, professional midwifery. In 1620 Peter Chamberlain invented the forceps and put the role of the midwife firmly in the hands of trained physicians (men).

B) William Harvey (1578 - 1657) Harvey was born in Folkestone, After Attending Caius College, he went to Cambridge University and then on to Padua, the greatest medical school of its time. He was taught there by hieronymus Fabricus who gave Harvey most of his knowledge on veins and valves. At Padua he developed his circulatory theories. He then came back to England and worked at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Harvey was the first person to come up with correct theories on the circulation of blood. He found this out like Versalius before him, by making direct observations and making detailed notes.

To begin with he had lots of criticism but he soon became a respected anatomist. Amongst other things, Harvey was the physician to king Charles the first who funded Harveys experiments. At the battle of Edge hill he looked after king Charles the firsts children in a near by field. In 1615 Harvey began to work on the idea that blood circulated around the body. By experimenting on live animals and dissecting the bodies of executed criminals, Harvey was able to prove that the heart was a pump, which forced blood around the body through arteries. Veins then returned the blood to the heart where it was recycled.

Due to Harvey discovering this fact, blood letting was finally ended 50 years after his death. Harvey's work was helped by the discovery that veins contained valves by Salerno Sari. Harvey realised that these valves stopped the blood from travelling back the wrong way to the heart. Harvey also worked out how much blood was in our bodies and he practised taking a pulse. Galen's theory was that the liver made blood which was sent to the heart which was believed to be a furnace designed to burn the blood. Harvey proved Galen wrong.

This upset many people because several high physicians saw Galen's book as a textbook. In 1628, Harvey published his book entitled 'An Anatomical Disquisition on the Movement of the Heart and Blood. But William Harvey was not satisfied with being the most acclaimed anatomist of his day. He was fascinated by everything about the body, and at some point turned his attention to reproduction. He thought that humans and other mammals must reproduce through a sperm fertilizing an egg. It was 200 years before a mammal egg was finally observed, but Harvey's theory was so well thought out that the medical world believed that he was right long before the discovery was finally made Harvey's work made little difference to general medical practice at the time.

Blood letting continued to be a popular practice, and it was not until the 20 th century that doctors realised the importance of checking a patient's blood flow by taking a pulse. Harvey's work did encourage others to investigate blood circulation, e. g. the blood's role in carrying air from the lungs discovered by Robert Hooke. His discovery of blood circulation was crucial to the understanding of the body and above all it totally knocked Galen's textbook of the shelf. Eventually.

Harveys work was important. Without his work, Malphigi; Leeuwenhoek and a lot of other anatomists would have been at a loss. Granted his work had holes in it, but he did not have a microscope. Operations on the heart or major surgery were unattainable but with his knowledge people could create reliable theories, new drugs and remedies. Like I stated earlier its like the domino effect -once one falls they all fall. Once Harvey had stated that the lungs put oxygen in the blood Jan Swamberdam put together the theory of oxidation of the blood.

ii) Harveys ideas were influenced greatly by the Renaissance and the scientific revolution. The spirit and attitude of students and teachers in those days were very inspiring. The need for new knowledge and a better understanding were huge; so much of the medical technology and medial knowledge came from this time in History. The way they collected their data as well was so studious.

They would dissect people writing copies amounts of notes while artists were on hand to sketch the body. I feel that one invention that helped the medical world dramatically was the movable printing press. The printing press was invented in Germany by a printer called Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. This helped immensely because when people like Versalius and Harvey published their books, they were able to circulate them easily and reached people who probably wouldnt have read them.

But not only was there a scientific revolution but the most famous artists were around plus authors and playwrights were writing classic plays such as William Shakespeare. These inspired Harvey as well. Harveys books are correct even today, and the engravings of Harvey, Versalius and their artists were accurate. The bones and organs picture are perfect observations. Harvey was more of a 2 nd generation anatomist of the Renaissance. The first generation would have been the likes of Da Vinci, Andras Versalius and hieronymus Fabricus; I think Versalius inspired Harvey tremendously.

The hardest task I feel was for people such as Andreas Versalius (1514 - 64) a Belgium artist and anatomist who through the dissection of executed criminals, managed to discover the way our organs and muscles fitted better than anyone before him. One of his most important studies was the discovery of the Septum wall. Versalius dissected a human and in a further dissection of the heart discovered that the septum was very dense and strong. Galen (the greek physician) said that blood seeped through the heart. This was impossible due to the septum being too thick, proving galen wrong and was the first nail in the coffin.

Doctors in the middle ages relied on Galen, a Greek doctors work nearly 450 years ago. Although galen's work was outstanding and his work on animals discovered blood flowed through arteries and not air, the brain, work about nerves and of our spinal cord it was however not entirely correct. Galen thought the source of blood was the liver, which made blood then sent it to the heart to be burnt. Galen also thought the system depended on the coexistence of three "spirits" in the body: the liver was the seat of the natural spirit, the heart of the vital spirit, and the brain of the animal spirit. Galen thought this because religion had restricted him to only dissecting animals; this is why some of his theories were wrong. Galen was not challenged resulting in a lack of new discoveries.

Versalius dissected human bodies and made lots of discoveries proving Galen wrong, Versalius had great respect for Galen and it wasnt until his second version of the fabric. that he must be wrong. This was ridiculed at first because it is like saying that everything that they have done has been wrong Versalius work was later recognised as to be correct. Versalius set the way for many to follow and later published a book called the fabric of the human body.

The book was a big inspiration and versalius ended up teaching other medical greats at Padua the school of medicine in Italy second would have been people like William Harvey and Renaldo Columbus and finally the third being Marcello malpighi and Robert hooke e. t. c. Another major tool that helped Harvey was the printing press, which meant he could get his theory published cheaply instead of a labouring process of a scribe.

So yes on the one hand I think...


Free research essays on topics related to: 14 th century, robert hooke, scientific revolution, blood circulation, middle ages

Research essay sample on 14 Th Century Scientific Revolution

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