Hello, I'm Mr. Marchant, and thank you for joining me for today's history lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources today, and my top priority is to make sure that by the end of our lesson, you are able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on Renaissance medicine and health, where we've been asking ourselves what medical knowledge changed in this period.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to evaluate the impact of changes in surgical practise and anatomical knowledge during the Renaissance period.

There are five keywords which will help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are ointment, ligature, cauterization, anatomy, and dissection.

Ointment is a smooth, thick substance that is used on painful or damaged skin.

A ligature is a thread or wire used for tying something, especially a blood vessel.

Cauterization is the action of burning body tissue, using heat to stop an injury from bleeding or getting infected.

Anatomy is a scientific study of the body and how it's parts are arranged.

And dissection is the action of cutting something open, especially a dead body or plant, in order to study its structure.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts, and we'll begin by focusing on responding to surgical problems. In the Renaissance period, as in the mediaeval period, surgery faced three major problems, pain, blood loss, and infection.

During the 16th century, Ambroise Pare was one of many surgeons who worked to try and manage these issues.

Ambroise Pare was a French surgeon.

Pare gained his surgical experience by working in hospitals and later as an army surgeon.

Whilst all surgeons at the time observed patients suffering from pain, blood loss, and infection, Pare was willing to try new methods based on reading, observation, and experimentation to respond to these issues.

Surgeons regularly used hot oil for cauterization, believing this would stop blood loss and prevented infections.

Pare also used this painful method, until 1537 when, during a battle, he ran out of oil whilst working.

Pere experimented instead.

He remembered a book which recommended smearing an ointment made from egg yolk, rose oil, and turpentine, a type of resin from trees, on wounds after hot oil had been applied.

Pare applied this ointment without the hot oil and notice later that whilst the soldiers he had treated with oil were in considerable pain, those he had only used the ointment on were resting and their wounds were healing.

The ointment helped heal wounds because turpentine can kill certain bacteria which cause infections.

However, as Pare did not know about germs, he was unaware of how or why the ointment worked.

Nevertheless, he recognised that his new method was effective in fighting infections and reducing pain and recommended it to other surgeons.

So, thinking about everything that we've just heard, which of the following factors helped Pare to make improvements to surgical practises? Was it government support, technology, or warfare? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was C.

Warfare helped Pare to make improvements to surgical practises because it was was whilst working as an army surgeon that he had to respond to new and challenging situations that helped him develop more effective methods.

Let's try another question.

This time we have a statement which reads, "In 1537, Pare started using ointments, which he knew could kill germs to help heal wounds." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was false.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So why is it that that original statement was incorrect? Pause video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said Pare's ointment contained turpentine, which kills some bacteria, but he did not know this and was unaware of germs. In the early 16th century, it was still common for patients with serious wounds or amputations to be cauterised to stop bleeding.

This involved putting a hot red iron against the skin.

Pare described this method as too cruel because it was incredibly painful for patients.

Furthermore, cauterization damages some healthy body tissue, which could also lead to deadly infections.

As an alternative, Pare promoted the use of ligatures to stop bleeding, an old method he had learned from Galen's works.

This method involved tying ligatures around individual blood vessels, and was very effective at preventing blood loss.

However, this method was not flawless.

Without knowledge of germs, surgeons using ligatures sometimes introduced new infections to a wound.

Furthermore, ligatures took longer to implement than cauterization did, meaning patients might lose more blood by the time the procedure was complete.

So let's check that we have a secure understanding of what we've just heard.

Which two problems did Pare hope to address by using ligatures? Was it blood loss, infection, or pain? Remember, you're looking for two answers to this question, so pause video here and press play when you're ready to check your answers.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answers were A and C.

Pare hoped that using ligatures would prevent blood loss and be less painful than the use of hot irons for cauterization.

And let's write another question.

This time, I want you to write the missing word from the following sentence.

"Ligatures, blank, the risk of patients being infected during surgeries compared to cauterization as they could introduce new germs." So what's the missing word? Pause a video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the missing word was "increased." Ligatures increased the risk of patients being infected during surgeries compared to cauterization as they could introduce new germs. So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge of responding to surgical problems into practise, and I want you to do two things.

Firstly, I want you to describe one way in which Ambroise Pare helped to manage each of the major problems of surgery.

So pain, infection, and blood loss.

And then I want you to answer the following question.

How did a lack of knowledge of germs affect Pare's work? So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So firstly, I asked you to describe one way in which Ambroise Pare helped to manage each of the major problems of surgery.

And your answers may have included that Pere used ligatures instead of hot irons used for cauterization, which meant he no longer inflicted extra pain by burning his patients.

May also have then said Pare used an ointment made of egg yolk, rose oil, and turpentine, which fought infections by killing some bacteria in wounds.

And Pare used ligatures to tie around blood vessels, which were more effective at preventing bleeding than cauterization.

So well done if your own answers on question one looks something similar to those models.

And then I asked you, "How did a lack of knowledge of germs affect Pare's work?" And your answer may have included Pare was unaware of germs and of their role in causing disease.

This meant that he was unable to explain why his ointment containing turpentine actually worked in helping wounds to heal.

Pare's use of ligatures was potentially even more problematic as because he didn't know about germs, he was unaware that surgeons implementing ligatures could unintentionally infect a patient by introducing new germs to their wounds.

So, really well done if your answer to our second question look something similar to that model.

And now we're ready to move on to the second part of our lesson for today, where we are going to consider challenging Galen.

At the beginning of the Renaissance period, understanding of human anatomy was still largely based around the works of Galen, an ancient Roman physician and surgeon.

However, there were some new challenges to Galen's ideas, especially from the surgeon Andreas Vesalius.

Andreas Vesalius learned medicine at the University of Paris where, like most medical students, he was taught human anatomy based on the works of Galen.

Afterwards, Vesalius moved on to become professor of surgery at the University of Padua in Italy.

In this role, Vesalius carried out many dissections of human bodies.

However, in doing so, Vesalius noticed that his observations of the human body differed from many things that Galen had written about anatomy.

For one, Vesalius was unable to find any small holes in the heart, which Galen had said allowed blood to pass from one side to the other.

Similarly, Vesalius noted that the jaw was made up of just one bone rather than two.

Vesalius was not the first person to conduct dissections and notice that what they observed did not fit Galen's descriptions of the human body.

This was not surprising, as many of Galen's ideas had been based on dissections of animals rather than human bodies.

However, previous surgeons and physicians had been unwilling to challenge Galen's authority.

Instead, they often blamed differences between his work and their observations on the individual bodies they'd dissected.

By contrast, Vesalius trusted his observations and concluded that Galen must have been wrong.

In 1543, Vesalius published "On the Fabric of the Human Body," which shared his discoveries and corrections of Galen's work.

The book included detailed illustrations based on Vesalius's dissections, and he encouraged medical students and professors to conduct their own dissections to help them learn, rather than just relying on old books like those written by Galen.

So let's check our understanding of everything we've just heard.

How did Vesalius identify that Galen had made mistakes in his work on anatomy? Was it by conducting his own dissections? By reading Arabic medical books? Or by talking with other surgeons and physicians? Pause a video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was A.

Vesalius identified that Galen had made mistakes on anatomy by conducting his own dissections of human bodies.

And let's try another question.

This time we have a statement which reads, "Vesalius was the first person to notice that dissections did not support Galen's ideas." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So why is it that that original statement was incorrect? Pause the video here and press play when you are ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said differences between what was seen in dissections and Galen's ideas had been noticed before, but were previously blamed on the bodies being dissected, as people were unwilling to challenge Galen.

And let's try a further question.

Why were there many mistakes in Galen's works on human anatomy? Was it because Galen based many ideas on animal dissections.

Galen had relied upon Bible for information.

Or Galen's works were written too long ago.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was A.

There were many mistakes in Galen's works on human anatomy because he had based many of his ideas on animal dissections rather than dissections of human bodies.

And let's write one final question.

I want you to identify one correction Vesalius made to Galen's work.

So pause video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, so well done if you identified one of the following corrections.

That Vesalius said the jaw was made up of one, not two bones.

And that he said there were no small holes in the heart.

So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge about challenging Galen into practise.

How did Andreas Vesalius challenge Galen's work? I want you to explain your answer in one paragraph, and you should refer to the methods Vesalius used in his work and the specific corrections which Vesalius made.

So pause the video here and press play when you are ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So I asked you, "How did Andreas Vesalius challenge Galen's work?" And your answer may have included, Andreas Vesalius was able to challenge Galen's work in part because he carried out his own dissections.

This allowed Vesalius to observe the human body and noticed that it differed from some of the things that Galen claimed about anatomy.

Vesalius chose to trust his own observations over Galen's ancient authority and therefore corrected some of his teachings.

For instance, whereas Galen had claimed the jaw was made up of two bones, Vesalius used his human dissections to show that it was actually made up of just one bone.

So really well done if your own response look something like that model, which we've just seen.

And now we're ready for the third and final part of our lesson for today, where we are going to think about the significance of Vesalius' work.

Vesalius' work proved to be highly influential for anatomy and medical practise.

However, his challenge to Galen also meant that his ideas faced considerable opposition.

Vesalius' work was important for helping to improve anatomical knowledge in the Renaissance period.

By sharing his discoveries in books like "On the Fabric of the Human Body," Vesalius ensured that many other people could benefit from his correction of Galen's mistakes.

Likewise, Vesalius ensured that his books were illustrated with precise depictions of anatomy to help others learn from his work.

In fact, there were over 600 drawings in the book, which readers could compare to their own observations of the body.

Furthermore, Vesalius' support for learning through observation rather than relying only on book-led learning was significant.

Many later students and teachers at Padua University followed Vesalius' example and conducted their own dissections.

In this way, individuals such as Fallopius, Colombo, and Fabricius were all able to make new anatomical findings during the late 16th century, including Fabricius' discovery of valves in human veins.

In the long term, all of this helped to encourage more medical progress.

So thinking about what we've just heard, how many anatomical drawings did Vesalius include in "On the Fabric of the Human Body?" Pause video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that there were over 600 anatomical drawings included in Vesalius' book "On the Fabric of the Human Body." And let's try another question.

This time I want you to write the missing word from the following sentence.

"Dissections by Fabricius helped him discover, blank, in human veins." So what's the missing word? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the missing word was "valves." Dissections by Fabricius helped him discover valves in human veins.

However, Vesalius faced considerable opposition to his work.

Although he had shown that Galen had made various anatomical mistakes, many of us still did not feel comfortable enough to challenge the medical authority of Galen.

Vesalius' former teacher, Jacob Sylvius argued that Galen had been correct and that if anything, human bodies must have changed since the ancient period when Galen wrote.

Even some of those who made new anatomical discoveries through dissection did not wish to accept that Galen was wrong.

For example, despite finding valves in the veins, which seemed to challenge Galen's ideas about blood, Fabricius refused to accept that the ancient ideas were wrong.

As a result, there were still many medical professionals who continue to base their medical knowledge and practises on Galen's works during the Renaissance period.

So let's make sure we have a secure understanding of what we've just heard.

We have a statement which reads, "By the end of the 16th century, many medical professionals still accepted Galen's works." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you are ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the statement was true.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So why is it that that original statement was correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, and well done to everybody who said many medical professionals, such as Jacob Sylvius and Fabricius, were unwilling to accept that Galen was wrong and refused to challenge his ideas.

In this way Galen's ideas continued to be accepted through to the end of the 16th century.

So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge of the significance of Vesalius' work into practise.

I want you to study Sophia's view.

Sophia says that despite correcting Galen's mistakes, Vesalius' work had little impact on Renaissance anatomy.

How far do you agree with Sophia's view? I want you to write one paragraph to explain your answer.

So pause video here and press play when you are ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked, "How far do you agree with Sophia's view?" And your answer may have included, Sophia is correct in her view that there were some limitations to the impact of Vesalius' work, especially because many other medical professionals were reluctant to accept that Galen made mistakes.

For example, Jacob Sylvius, who had taught Vesalius, argued that Galen couldn't have been wrong and it must be human bodies which had changed.

This attitude meant that Vesalius corrections were not fully accepted.

Nevertheless, even some people who worried about challenging Galen were encouraged by Vesalius's work to conduct their own dissections.

This allowed new discoveries to be made including Fabricius' discovery of valves in human veins.

Therefore, it's clear that Vesalius work did encourage more observation in anatomy, which allowed new knowledge to be gained.

So really well done if your own response look something similar to that model which we've just seen.

And so now we've reached the end of today's lesson, which puts us in a good position to summarise our learning about Renaissance changes in anatomy and surgery.

We've seen that Ambroise Pare encourage the use of ointments and ligatures instead of cauterization to help manage the problems of blood loss, pain, and infection.

Andreas Vesalius identified and corrected some Galen's mistakes about human anatomy by carrying out human dissections.

Vesalius successfully encouraged others to learn through observation and dissection rather than just relying on old books.

And during the Renaissance period, many medical professionals remained unwilling to reject Galen's ideas, even though his mistakes had been highlighted.

So really well done for all of your effort during today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to help guide you through our resources today, and I look forward to seeing you again in future as we continue to think about Renaissance medicine and health.