Pick the Chirurgeon’s Brain
Curious about blood-letting techniques in the 17th century? Ever wonder just how long it took a chirurgeon to remove a limb in this period? Could medical practitioners really diagnosis cancer? This is your chance to ask what you always wanted to know about early modern medicine! Just enter your question in the comment box below and I will try to answer in a timely manner.
Harvey’s work hardly came from nowhere, born from the head of The Great Man. There was a series of anatomical projects at Padua, upon which Harvey built. The work of his teacher, Fabricius, was particularly important.
See, for example, Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance:
the resurrection of the anatomical projects of the ancients (Scolar Press, 1997)
Regards
PS. I presume your assigning chemical reformers to the 15th century was an accident. See the works of of the late Allen G. Debus.
Was there ever any skepticism about ‘bodily humors’ and the effectiveness of bloodletting before the establishment of modern scientific and medical practices? Such treatments were used so commonly through so many centuries, but it is hard to believe that there were no physicians or surgeons who doubted them.
This is a very interesting question which necessitates a complex answer. However, for brevity’s sake, I will try to condense it here.
There were many theoretical challenges to humoral pathology during the early modern period, beginning in the 15th century with the chemical reformers—who themselves were diverse in their many philosophies. In essence, these reformers rejected the idea that disease was caused by an imbalance in the four humours, arguing instead for a reassessment of medicine aligned on chemical terms. In this sense, most chemical reformers rejected blood-letting, instead opting to cure ‘like with like’ using chemical medicines.
In the 1630s, the philosopher Descartes proposed that the body and soul were entirely separate entities, with the body acting as a machine. This spawned new mechanical theories about the body and corresponding therapeutic treatments. For instance, the Italian physician, Marcello Malpighi, imagined the body was a compound of glands in the 1660s; while Newtonian physicians in the first decades of the 18th century developed a theory that explained human physiology in mathematical terms.
For a better overview on this subject, I suggest reading chapters 5 & 7 in Peter Elmer, The Healing Arts: Heath, disease and Society in Europe, 1500-1800. Thanks for your question!
What function was it believed the heart performed before Harvey? You say he had to show it was a pump which implies that it was considered to have some other function.
Before Harvey’s publication, De Motu Cordis (1628), most medical practitioners adhered to Galen’s view of the body’s physiological systems. The Greek physician (2nd century AD) postulated that there were two types of blood in the human body. The first was ‘nutritive blood’. This was produced in the liver from digested food and carried by the veins to the rest of the organs, where it was then consumed. Some of the nutritive blood reached the left ventricle of the heart, where it then mixed with pneuma—spirits extracted from the air in the lungs. When the nutritive blood and the pneuma mixed, they produced ‘vital blood’ which was then transported throughout the body via an entirely separate system of vessels: the arteries.
For Galen, the heart did not act as a pump. Instead, its main function was to regenerate vital blood, which was constantly being consumed by other organs in the body. The arteries ‘sucked in’ the vital blood from the heart just as the heart ‘sucked in’ nutritive blood from the veins. The pulse was not an indication of the heart expelling blood with great force, but rather the arteries expanding and contracting to disperse vital blood to other parts of the body.
It is a theory that may seem very alien to us today, but one which dominated Western medical theory for 1500 years.
Did mercury treatments actually help treat syphilis?
During the early modern period, mercury treatments were administered to patients in a variety of ways. It could be taken internally as a pill, or it could be used externally in the form of an ointment or steam bath. In some instances, it did reverse the symptoms of syphilis (especially with regards to skin lesions); however, the effects of mercury were often just as deadly as the disease. Patients exposed to macroscopic dosages of mercury could expect to experience hair loss, bleeding gums, open sores, and—in extreme cases—madness.
In the 19th century, the physician Samuel Hahnemann proved that small doses of diluted mercury could cure uncomplicated syphilis. In fact, Hahnemann’s treatment was advocated by many homeopathic practitioners well into the 20th century. Nevertheless, while this may be true, mercury treatment of any kind is not without its dangers.
Today, syphilis is treated with antibiotics.
You are neglecting the achievements of Ibn al-Nafis and Miguel Servetus.
Ibn al-Nafis was the first to correctly identify the circulation of the blood around the heart in the 13th century, but this text was only discovered in the 20th century and therefore had no impact on the development of medicine in the West.
However, it is true that Michael Servetus was the first European to describe pulmonary circulation in the 16th century. His theories were published in a religious book which was then burned for its heretical views. It had little impact on the medical world at that time, and therefore is [perhaps wrongly] often overlooked by historians of medicine.
Many thanks for your input.
Who was the person responsible for the idea that blood circulated inside the body?
William Harvey was the first to correctly identify the circulation of the blood around the heart in a medical publication, De Motu Cordis (1628). Before then, medical practitioners believed blood was generated in the liver and then distributed throughout the body where it was later consumed by the other organs. By removing the beating hearts of live animals, however, Harvey proved that the organ was a pump through which blood was continuously recycled throughout the body.
As ‘obvious’ as this may seem to us today, Harvey’s discovery created a lot of controversy in its day, and debates raged for decades over the validity of his assertions. For years to come, many medical practitioners continued to believe that blood was generated in the liver and not circulated throughout the body through the heart.