Hospitals In The Renaissance

1. Hospitals In The Renaissance Did hospitals improve in the Renaissance?

2. Recap – What Was Hospitals Like In The Middle Ages? • 47% house the poor and elderly. They provided no medical care • 31% were leper Hospitals which provided no medical care • 12% gave shelter to the poor and pilgrims • 10% cared for the sick Hospitals were really picky with whom they took in, not wanting to catch any disease from them. Most were what we call now care homes they provided food rest and prater. In the 1400’s there were thousands of little hospital. They were run by Monks and Nuns who prayed fro the sick.

3. TheRenaissance: Hospitals Many hospital had been part of the monastery, so when Henry VIII closed down the church many hospitals closed to. However some were taken over by the council. For example the St Bartholomew’s hospital was kept open and by the 1600’s it had twelve wards and up to 300 patients. During the 1700’s many new hospitals were opened, paid for by local people. There were now 47 fully functioning hospitals in Britain.

4. TheRenaissance: Patients In 1750, nearly all hospitals still looked after the poor. Anyone with any money paid for a doctor to look after them at home. Many hospitals still did not admit people with infections disease however this was about to change, a handful of top hospitals in London and Edinburgh

5. TheRenaissance: treatments Patients were kept clean and warm and were fed regularly. If they became sick they were given herbal remedies or bled. Simple surgery was carried out, such as bone setting however some times drastic surgery was carried out such as amputating limbs. All treatments were free but patients were still expected to pray for there recovery.

6. TheRenaissance: Doctors and Nurses In the 1660’s, St Bartholomew's hospital in London had 3 physicians, 3 surgeons, 15 nursing staff and a large number of helping nurses. Physicians were trained at university however training carried on at hospitals. Nurses gave patients herbal remedies and helping nursing staff did heavy manual labor such as cooking, cleaning and meaning ad therefore had no medical training.

7. TheRenaissance: Foot Steps To The Future Training emphasized the impotence of experiments to test the value of treatments In a handful of hospitals part of the training took part in wards rather than just reading books Some hospital were beginning to take in the sick and treat their illnesses, not just caring for the sick Improved medicine and health