The outstanding European (Swiss-born) physician who lived at the junction of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, an era of dissipating darkness that prefigured the Renaissance that followed, was the man known by the pseudonym Paracelsus. His real name was Philip Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. He became famous for his revolutionary views on medicine, rejecting blind adherence to the authorities of antiquity. For this he was excommunicated from teaching and declared a fraud by his Nuremberg colleagues in the medical profession. In response to this accusation, Paracelsus offered to entrust him with the treatment of three patients who were deemed hopeless. In the city archive of Nuremberg there are documents certifying that he cured these three patients who were considered incurable, and in a fairly short time and for free – and restored his reputation. Paracelsus died suddenly and early, at the age of 48, and there is reason to believe that his death was not natural, but the result of an attack paid for by one of his jealous colleagues. During his short but very fruitful life Paracelsus managed to make a major contribution to the development of medicine as a science, gave an understanding of man as a holistic organism, a microcosm in macrocosm, breathed new life into pharmacology.
During the Renaissance, the understanding of medicine as a science returns and it begins its rapid growth, perhaps comparable in importance only with the ancient Greek period. Here are just a few of the scientists whose contributions to medicine at that time played a very important role and greatly contributed to the advances we enjoy today.
Leonardo Da Vinci – performed autopsies and sketched the results in detail. His drawings served as an anatomical atlas; he is credited with the discovery of the cerebral aqueduct, the maxillary sinus, and the cardiac conduction system.
Girolamo Frocastro was the progenitor of epidemiology. He described infectious diseases, including typhoid, syphilis, and tuberculosis, and the ways in which they spread.
André Vesalius – made a great contribution to the development of anatomy, described the cardiovascular system as it is known today.
Eustachius Bartolomeo – studied the organ of hearing (the Eustachian tube connecting the ear to the nasopharynx is named after him) and the vascular system.
Ambroise Paré – founder of military surgery, created a manual on treatment of various wounds caused by weapons (for example, before him it was believed that gunshot wounds should be treated with boiling oil and red-hot iron).
William Garvey was a prominent English physician, the founder of modern circulatory physiology, who also made discoveries in embryology.
This period was a time of accumulation of knowledge about human nature, as well as about various diseases and their treatments. All this basis prepared the scientific breakthrough that followed.