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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're able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on Renaissance medicine and health.

Well, 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 William Harvey's work on blood.

There are two key words which will help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are circulation and transform.

Circulation refers to the movement of blood around your body, and transform means to change something completely, usually to improve it.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts, and we'll begin by focusing on William Harvey's medical training.

William Harvey was an English physician in the 17th century.

During his career, Harvey helped advance anatomy.

Harvey's medical training was important for enabling the work he carried out later in his career.

William Harvey began his medical training in Britain, where he studied at Cambridge University in the late 16th century.

At this time, the university had received royal permission to use the bodies of two executed criminals for anatomical dissections and demonstrations each year.

As a student, this allowed Harvey to develop his medical knowledge through observation rather than book-led learning alone.

However, at Cambridge, just like in most other European universities, many professors remained devoted towards the ancient works of Galen.

This was despite the fact that some of Galen's ideas about human anatomy had already been disproved by individuals like Andreas Vesalius.

When Vesalius encouraged John Caius, a leading professor at Cambridge, to stop teaching an incorrect passage in Galen's work, Caius refused, claiming they would be too dangerous to tamper with such an ancient work.

So let's reflect on what we've just heard.

We have a statement which says William Harvey was only able to train through book-led learning at Cambridge University.

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're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said Cambridge University had royal permission to dissect the bodies of two executed criminals each year and demonstrate these to students.

And let's write another question.

How did the Cambridge professor, John Caius, react to discoveries which disproved some of Galen's ideas? Was it that Caius continued teaching Galen's incorrect passages, that Caius held dissections to challenge more of Galen's works, or that Caius stopped teaching Galen's incorrect passages? 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.

Despite some of Galen's ideas being disproved, John Caius, a leading professor at the University of Cambridge in the late 16th century, continued teaching those passages from Galen.

Harvey continued his medical training at Padua University in Italy.

At Padua, Harvey was taught by Hieronymous Fabricius.

Fabricius had followed Vesalius's encouragement to conduct his own dissections, which allowed new knowledge of human anatomy to be gained.

For example, Fabricius used dissections to discover that there were valves in human veins.

Other professors at Padua made similar progress through observations and dissections.

Realdo Colombo showed that blood moved around the body in arteries and veins.

The example of these professors demonstrated the importance of dissections to William Harvey and other medical students.

Once Harvey completed his studies at Padua, he returned to Britain, where he became a well-established physician in London.

So let's make sure we have a secure understanding.

I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

At Padua University, professors such as Hieronymous Fabricius made new discoveries by carrying out blank.

So what's the missing word? Pause the 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 dissections.

At Padua University, professors such as Hieronymous Fabricius made new discoveries by carrying out dissections.

So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge of Harvey's medical training into practise.

For Task A, I want you to do two things.

Firstly, I want you to describe one way in which William Harvey's medical training suggests that Renaissance physicians were encouraged to develop new ideas.

And then secondly, I want you to describe one way in which William Harvey's medical training suggests that Renaissance physicians were encouraged to accept traditional beliefs.

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 William Harvey's medical training suggests that Renaissance physicians were encouraged to develop new ideas, and your answer may have included during William Harvey's training, his professors encouraged observation and carried out their own dissections to help them and their students learn more about human anatomy.

For example, Hieronymous Fabricius, who taught Harvey at Padua University, used dissections to discover that human veins contain valves.

So well done if your own response to question one looks something similar to that model.

And then I asked you to describe one way in which William Harvey's medical training suggests that Renaissance physicians were encouraged to accept traditional beliefs, and your answer may have included during William Harvey's training, he had professors who remained devoted to the works of Galen, even though some of Galen's theories had been disproven.

For example, some medical professors at the university at Cambridge, like John Caius, continued to teach incorrect passages from Galen's work as they feared tampering with such ancient texts could be dangerous.

So well done again if your own response looks something like that model which we've just seen.

And that means we're now ready to move on to the second part of our lesson, where we're going to focus on Harvey's theory of the blood.

William Harvey's main contribution to medicine was his theory about the circulation of blood.

Harvey first published this theory in 1628.

These ideas challenged some of the works of Galen.

William Harvey was particularly interested in blood and suspected that it flowed continuously around the body.

However, this theory contradicted the works of Galen.

Galen had said that new blood was made in the liver, that veins carried it to other parts of the body where it provided energy and was burned up like fuel.

These ideas were incorrect but had been accepted for centuries by the time of the Renaissance period.

Building upon existing medical works, including those written by Vesalius, Harvey relied upon dissection to help investigate his theories regarding blood.

Harvey dissected human bodies and also cold-blooded animals like frogs whose slow heartbeats allowed him to observe the movement of blood around their bodies whilst they were still alive.

He also experimented with measuring blood flow and pumping blood through veins and arteries.

Through more than a decade of research, Harvey concluded that blood could only flow in one direction around the body, and that it flowed from arteries to veins in one circular motion, that the heart acted as a pump to circulate blood around the body, that it was impossible for the liver to produce as much blood as the body would need, and that blood circulated continuously rather than being made and burned up in the body.

In 1628, Harvey published a book called "An Anatomical Account of The Motion of the Heart and Blood", which shared his ideas with other medical professionals.

So thinking about everything that we've just heard, which two ideas about blood came from Galen? Was it that blood was made in the liver, that blood was pumped by the heart, that blood was constantly made and burned up, or that blood circulated around the body continuously? Pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to see the right answers.

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

Galen had written that blood was made in the liver and that it was constantly being made and burned up in the body.

These ideas were incorrect, but had been accepted for centuries by the time of the Renaissance period.

Let's write another question.

This time we have a statement which reads, some of William Harvey's research was based on animal dissections.

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 true, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So how can we tell that that original statement was correct? Pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said, Harvey dissected cold-blooded animals whose slow heartbeats allowed him to observe the movement of blood around their bodies whilst they were still alive.

And let's try another question.

When did Harvey publish his theories about the circulation of blood? Pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that Harvey published his theories in the year 1628.

So now we're in a good position to put all of our knowledge about Harvey's theory of the blood into practise.

I want you to explain how William Harvey challenged Galen's ideas about blood.

You should refer to the corrections Harvey made to Galen's work and the methods Harvey used to challenge Galen's ideas.

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

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

So I asked you to explain how William Harvey challenged Galen's ideas about blood, and your answer may have included William Harvey relied mainly on dissections, observations and experimentations to conduct his work.

For example, he dissected human bodies to investigate the heart and even dissected live cold-blooded animals to observe blood being pumped around their bodies.

From this work, Harvey was able to disprove a number of Galen's ideas about blood.

For one, he showed that the heart pumped blood so that it circulated in one direction around the body.

His research also led him to conclude that the same blood circulated continuously around the body, unlike Galen's idea that it was burned up like fuel and that new blood was made in the liver.

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

And now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson for today, where we're going to think about Harvey's significance.

Harvey's theories about blood represented an important development in understanding of anatomy.

However, like with other new ideas developed in the Renaissance period, Harvey's theories encountered opposition.

This has led to debate about how transformational Harvey's work was for Renaissance medicine.

Harvey's challenge to Galen's ideas was significant.

As he noted, his theories showed not only that Galen was wrong about blood, but that it was an error held now for 2,000 years, accepted by other great men.

Indeed, Galen's influence meant that physicians in Britain and Europe had incorrectly understood the blood and heart for centuries.

Like with the work of Vesalius, by correcting Galen, Harvey showed that ancient authorities could be wrong and encouraged further observation and experimentation.

For instance, many medical professionals began to study the liver more closely to figure out what its functions might be if it didn't produce blood as Galen had claimed.

Harvey's work also challenged some widespread medical treatments.

In particular, his theory that the same blood circulated the body continuously called bloodletting into question.

Bloodletting involved cutting a patient to deliberately drain some of their blood based on a belief that too much blood could cause illness.

As Harvey's work showed that blood was not constantly produced in a body, it implied that bloodletting could lead to dangerous levels of blood loss rather than restoring a patient's health.

So let's reflect on everything we've just heard.

Harvey's work encouraged further research into which organ? Was it the brain, the liver, or the lungs? Pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

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

Harvey's work encouraged further research into the liver because if it had been proved that it didn't produce blood as Galen had claimed, many medics wanted to know what its actual function was.

Let's try another question.

Which popular medical treatment did Harvey's work on blood circulation challenge? Pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said, bloodletting.

Bloodletting was a popular medical treatment in the Renaissance period, but Harvey's work on blood circulation challenged the practise and suggested that it might actually be responsible for dangerous levels of blood loss.

The impact of Harvey's work was not immediate.

In part, this was because he faced opposition from many other physicians.

Harvey was well-respected, he'd even become King Charles I's personal physician in 1630.

Nevertheless, many other medical professionals were unwilling to accept both a challenge to Galen's work and the implication that they themselves had held incorrect medical beliefs.

Jean Riolan, a leading professor at the University of Paris, defended Galen, and went so far as to suggest that Harvey was a quack, meaning a useless and untrustworthy doctor.

English medical textbooks continued to reproduce Galen's ideas about blood until 1651, and it wasn't until the 1670s that Harvey's theory of the circulation of blood replaced Galen's works in universities like Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris.

Therefore, it was only after many decades that Harvey's work led to more accurate training for new generations of physicians.

Furthermore, the implications of Harvey's theory for bloodletting had little impact on medical practises as many physicians continued to recommend it as a treatment.

Indeed, even Harvey failed to publish any direct criticism of bloodletting, so it remained a common medical procedure.

Admittedly, Harvey's ideas did encourage some doctors to think more about blood loss and to begin experimenting with blood transfusions, meaning methods for transferring blood into a person's body to manage this problem.

However, due to both a lack of knowledge of blood groups and technological limitations, these experiments had no meaningful success in the Renaissance period.

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

In which decade did leading universities begin teaching Harvey's ideas? Was it the 1630s, the 1650s, or the 1670s? 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.

It was not until the 1670s that Harvey's ideas were taught in leading universities like Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris.

And let's try another question.

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

Jean Riolan, a professor at the University of Paris, called Harvey a blank as part of his defence of Galen's work.

So what's the missing word? Pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

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

Jean Riolan, a professor at the University of Paris, called Harvey a quack as part of his defence of Galen's work.

Let's try one final question.

This time we have a statement which reads, Harvey's work led to improved medical treatments in the Renaissance period.

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're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said, many physicians continued to recommend bloodletting despite its dangers, whilst attempts at blood transfusion were not successful.

Therefore, we can tell that medical treatments didn't really improve as a result of Harvey's work in the Renaissance period.

So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge from today's lesson into practise.

I want you to answer the following question.

To what extent did William Harvey's theories on blood transform Renaissance medicine? As part of your answer, you may refer to Harvey's impact on medical knowledge, other people's reaction to his work, and the impact of Harvey's work on medical treatments.

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

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

So I asked you, to what extent did William Harvey's theories on blood transform Renaissance medicine? And your answer may have included William Harvey's theories did help to transform knowledge of human anatomy in the Renaissance period.

Harvey's work disproved some of Galen's theories, including his belief that new blood was made in the liver, and it was burned up like fuel by the body.

Because Galen's work had been taught in European universities, his errors had been accepted by most physicians for centuries.

However, by the 1670s, Harvey's work had replaced Galen's teachings in universities like Cambridge and Paris, meaning that future physicians were no longer taught incorrect ideas about blood.

However, neither the immediate nor practical effects of Galen's work were transformational because many people were reluctant to change ideas and practises which had been accepted for so long.

For example, despite Harvey's expertise, critics like Jean Riolan called him a quack for challenging Galen.

Similarly, whilst Harvey's theories suggested bloodletting was dangerous, even Harvey did not say this directly, and many physicians ignored these implications.

This meant that bloodletting continued to be used as a medical treatment despite its ineffectiveness and potential dangers.

So really well done for all your work on that task, especially if your response looks something similar to that model which we've just seen.

And that means we've now reached the end of today's lesson, which puts us in a good position to summarise all of our learning about William Harvey.

We've seen that Renaissance training for physicians included growing emphasis on dissections as well as book-led learning.

Galen's ideas, that blood was made in the liver and burned up in a body like fuel, had been accepted by physicians for centuries.

Through dissections and experimentation, William Harvey developed his theory that blood constantly circulates the body, pumped by the heart.

Harvey's ideas challenged Galen and practises such as bloodletting, but many critics of Harvey refused to challenge Galen, and so it took many decades for universities to begin teaching Harvey's ideas.

So really well done for all of your hard work 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.