The Ancient Texts
Examining the relationship between ancient authorities and science in Renaissance Italy
During the Renaissance, like during the Middle Ages and Islamic Golden Age before it, Ancient Greek and Roman texts provided instruction and theory about the heavens, the earth, and the body. Scientific authority came from these ancient texts on medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and other areas of science. Latin translations of works by Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen were used as the foundations of Renaissance university learning. Medical scholars translated and revered the ancient works, following the established authorities with diligence and loyalty. As a result of doctors’ reliance on texts dating over a thousand years old, the medical practice of Medieval-early Renaissance Europe lacked some unity between theory and practice.
For example, the occupation of surgeon was divided in two: one, the man with the medical knowledge, would consult the texts and give directions to the other, generally a barber who performed the actual procedure. The doctor would not have direct contact with the patient. Resultantly, anatomical errors in the ancient books would go unnoticed and uncorrected. Roman law forbade the dissection of human cadavers; Galen’s great medical recommendations were therefore established through comparative anatomy by dissecting animals, so errors did exist. Blind reliance on established medical doctrine ruled late Medieval-early Renaissance European university curriculum, stagnating progress and foiling collaborative innovation.
For example, the occupation of surgeon was divided in two: one, the man with the medical knowledge, would consult the texts and give directions to the other, generally a barber who performed the actual procedure. The doctor would not have direct contact with the patient. Resultantly, anatomical errors in the ancient books would go unnoticed and uncorrected. Roman law forbade the dissection of human cadavers; Galen’s great medical recommendations were therefore established through comparative anatomy by dissecting animals, so errors did exist. Blind reliance on established medical doctrine ruled late Medieval-early Renaissance European university curriculum, stagnating progress and foiling collaborative innovation.
Galen’s medical authority went unquestioned and unexamined until the anatomist Andreas Vesalius entered the stage of Renaissance humanist science in the 16th Century. Vesalius revolutionized medical education and exploration in a typically Renaissance way – he emphasized the importance of empiricism, evidenced by the great quantity of human dissections he performed. Comparing the human anatomy of his cadavers to the descriptions of Galen, Vesalius found discrepancy. He used his anatomical dissections to reevaluate Galen’s teachings. Vesalius’s anatomical text De humani corporis fabrica spread his increasingly accurate knowledge of human anatomy, as did his post as professor of anatomy at the University of Padua. Vesalius helped establish the university as the medical superpower of Renaissance Europe, as his lectures were not only innovative and accurate, but he also rejected the separation of surgical duties, urging surgeons to perform their own surgeries for the sake of learning and precision. Regarding the pulmonary system, Vesalius did not go so far as to explicitly challenge Galen’s teachings, but he made it clear with his anatomical diagrams and descriptions that he could find no evidence of pores penetrating the septum of the heart, connecting the two systems. Thus, Vesalius began the century long discussion of the validity of Galen’s medical teachings conducted by the staff and students of the University of Padua.
The significance of observation that Vesalius stressed was a key aspect of the Renaissance, and it transformed medical practice. Maclean reveals that formerly, a medical student was versed in pedagogy, not experimentation. Thus, while ancient texts may have provided insights into medicine and other areas of science, the overt reliance on the texts and outdated knowledge held scientists back. In this way, ancient authorities often stagnated the progress of Italian science, but thanks to the emergence of Renaissance thinking centered on observation and experimentation and the natural world, science experienced a methodological rebirth.
The significance of observation that Vesalius stressed was a key aspect of the Renaissance, and it transformed medical practice. Maclean reveals that formerly, a medical student was versed in pedagogy, not experimentation. Thus, while ancient texts may have provided insights into medicine and other areas of science, the overt reliance on the texts and outdated knowledge held scientists back. In this way, ancient authorities often stagnated the progress of Italian science, but thanks to the emergence of Renaissance thinking centered on observation and experimentation and the natural world, science experienced a methodological rebirth.
Sources and Further Reading:
- Maclean, Ian. “Evidence, Logic, the Rule and the Exception in Renaissance Law and Medicine.” Early Science and Medicine 5, no. 3 (2000): 227-257. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4130184
- BBC History - Historic Figures. "Andreas Vesalius." http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/vesalius_andreas.shtml
- Berryman, Silvia. “Galen and the Mechanical Philosophy.” Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 35, no. 3 (September 2002): 235-253. JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/40913926
- Larsen, Jordan. "Circulating Systems: The University's Role in the Discovery of Pulmonary Circulation." Essay for HSCI 3013-995, Universtiy of Oklahoma, 2014.