History of Pharmacology (Renaissance to Early Modern Medicine)

1. The Renaissance to Early
Modern Medicine

2. When was the Renaissance?
The Renaissance is a period in European
history, from the 14th to the 17th century,
regarded as the cultural bridge between the
Middle Ages and modern history.

3. The main change in Renaissance medicine was
largely due to the increase in anatomical
knowledge, aided by an easing of the legal and
cultural restrictions on dissecting cadavers.

4. How were diseases diagnosed?
Methods of diagnosis during the early Renaissance
period were not very different from what occurred during
the Middle Ages. Physicians had no idea how to cure
infectious disease. When faced with the plague or
syphilis they did not really know what to do.
Ineffective desperate attempts at treating diseases also
included superstitious rites and magic. Even the King,
Charles II, was asked to help out by touching sick people
in an attempt to cure them of scrofula (The King's Evil).
Scrofula was most likely a type of tuberculosis.

5. Charles II touching a patient for the King's evil, circa 1680 (1903).
Over 92,000 scrofulous people were touched by him, over 4,500 annually.

6. Medicines, Treatment and
Herbal Remedies
•Quinine, from the bark of the Quina tree, for the treatment
of malaria and its symptoms.
•Laudanum, based on opium,as a painkiller.
•Tobacco
•Enemas
•Bloodletting, Cupping and Tooth removal
•Herbal remedies resembling the human body
•Mercury for the treatment of Syphilis
•Alcohol for digestion
•Earwax for migraines
•Pig urine to beat a fever

7. Healthcare System
• The other main change in European healthcare was the
establishment of hospitals, although these were often
the preserve of the wealthy.
• Surgical procedures improved and survival from even
simple procedures increased.By the fifteenth century,
Florence had 35 hospitals.
• During the Renaissance, public baths remained popular.
It was not until after this period that Europeans viewed
water as a carrier of disease and the Catholic Church
started wondering about the immorality of public bathing.
The Church eventually banned public bathing in an
attempt to stem the spread of syphilis (which continued
to spread).

8. Theophrastus Aureolus
Bombastus von Hohenheim
“Paracelsus”
How did Paracelsus treated his
patients and diagnosed them?
He diagnosed patients based on
nature and how the patients truly
felt the pain or symptoms of the
disease and he did not consider
the ancient texts as basis.

9. Did Paracelsus use herbal remedies?
Paracelsus’ original conception was to make an elixir based
on three key ingredients; Aloe, Saffron, and Myrrh.
• Aloe is known in Greek medicine as being a fluidifier and
attenuant for all of the Four Humours.
• Saffron is a potent blood thinner and purifier, and an
excellent heart and circulatory tonic.
• Myrrh is what is known as a vulnerary or cicatrizant, an
herbal resin that promotes tissue regeneration and the
healing of the wounds especially in combination with Aloe.
“The dose makes the poison”,
meaning toxic substances taken
in small doses is harmless but
ordinary non-toxic drugs becomes
dangerous if over-consumed.

10. Mercury for Syphilis
• Paracelsus also had some training in alchemy, from
which he picked up the principle that metals were
the key elements which made up the universe, and
that they were subject to control by God, the ‘great
magician’ who created nature.
• He was the first to declare that, if given in small
doses, “what makes a man ill also cures him” on
the basis of this idea, Paracelsus introduced new
chemical substances into medicine, for instance the
use of the metal mercury for the treatment of
syphilis.

11. Humphry Davy
• Sir Humphry Davy was an English
chemist best known for his
contributions to the discoveries of
chlorine and iodine.
• He made several reports on the
effects of inhaling nitrous oxide
(laughing gas).
• He invented the Davy lamp, which
allowed miners to work safely in
close contact with flammable gases.

12. In the lab, Davy prepared (and inhaled) nitrous oxide (also
known as laughing gas) to test its disease-causing properties,
and his work led to an appointment as chemical
superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution in 1798. From that
position he explored such areas as oxides, nitrogen and
ammonia.
Davy next dived into electricity experiments, namely exploring
the electricity-producing properties of electrolytic cells and the
chemical implications of those cells' processes. That work led
to further discoveries regarding sodium and potassium and
the discovery of boron. Also along this trajectory, Davy parsed
out why chlorine serves as a bleaching agent.

13. William Thomas Green Morton
The father of Modern Anaesthesia
American dental surgeon
who in 1846 gave the first
successful public
demonstration of ether
anaesthesia during surgery.
He is credited with gaining
the medical world’s
acceptance of surgical
anaesthesia.

14. • On October 16, 1846, William T. G. Morton administered an
effective anaesthetic to a surgical patient. Consenting to
what became a most significant scientific revolution were
John Warren an apprehensive surgeon, and Glenn Abbott,
an even more nervous young man about to undergo
removal of a vascular tumour on the left side of his neck.

15. • He developed a letheon
inhaler that he tried to
patent as a unique
invention.
• Morton’s genius resided not
only in his observations of
the power of ether but also
in his development of a
crude but scientific method
of regulating its inhalation,
thus creating the field of
anesthesiology.

16. Edward Jenner
Father of Immunology
Edward Jenner was an
English doctor, the
pioneer of smallpox
vaccination and the father
of immunology.

17. In 1796, he carried out his now famous experiment on
eight-year-old James Phipps. Jenner inserted pus taken
from a cowpox pustule and inserted it into an incision on
the boy's arm.
Jenner subsequently proved that having been
inoculated with cowpox, Phipps was immune to
smallpox. He submitted a paper to the Royal Society in
1797 describing his experiment, but was told that his
ideas were too revolutionary and that he needed more
proof. Undaunted, Jenner experimented on several
other children, including his own 11-month-old son.

18. In 1798, the results were finally published and
Jenner called his new method ‘vaccination’ after
the Latin word for cow (vacca). But Jenner had
no explanation for why this method worked - no-
one could see the virus with the microscopes of
the time.
• Jenner’s method of vaccination against smallpox
grew in popularity and eventually spread around
the globe.
• About 150 years after Jenner’s death in 1823,
smallpox would be making its last gasps. The
World Health Organization eventually declared
smallpox to be eradicated from the planet in
1980 after a massive surveillance and
vaccination program.

19. Crawford Williamson Long
Discoverer of Anaesthesia
American surgeon and
pharmacist best known for his
first use of inhaled sulfuric
ether as an anaesthetic.

20. • During his medical studies, Long had the
opportunity to observe and participate in several
surgeries, but these were harrowing experiences,
as patients were not sedated and often
experienced excruciating pain. At times doctors
used alcohol, hypnotism, or other means to try to
relax patients before surgery, but these remedies
merely affected the patient's mental state and did
little to relieve pain.

21. • He began to experiment with sulfuric ether as an
anesthetic. He performed his first surgical
procedure using the gas(ether) on March 30, 1842,
when he removed a tumor from the neck of a young
man named James M. Venable, in Jefferson,
Georgia. He performed more surgeries using
anesthesia over the next several years.
• On June 18, 1879, the National Eclectic Medical
Association (an organization that advocated using
the best remedies that could be found, from many
different sources) passed a resolution declaring
Long as the discoverer of anaesthesia.

22. Gerhard Johannes Paul Domagk
German pathologist and
bacteriologist. He is credited with
the discovery of
Sulfonamidochrysoidine (KI-730)
– the first commercially available
antibiotic (marketed under the brand
name Prontosil) – for which he
received the 1939 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine.

23. How did Domagk treat his patients and
diagnose them?
• He introduced sulfa drugs, or sulfonamides, all of which
are related to the compound sulfanilamide, provided the
first successful therapies for many bacterial diseases,
especially staphylococcal and streptococcal infections
along with pneumococcal and tubercular infections. His own
daughter actually became very ill with a streptococcal
infection, and Domagk, in desperation, gave her a dose of
Prontosil, a derivative of sulphanilamide (p-
aminobenzenesulphonamide) which the Viennese chemist,
Gelmo, had synthesized in 1908.. She made a complete
recovery after taking the drug.

24. • He also discovered the therapeutic value of
the quaternary ammonium bases and he also
extended, in collaboration with Klarer and
Mietzsch, his work on the sulphonamides.
Later, he attacked the problem of the
chemotherapy of tuberculosis, developing for
this the thiosemicarbazones (Conteben) and
isonicotinic acid hydrazide (Neoteben).

25. What was his healthcare system?
Domagk believes that a drug’s role was to interact
with the immune system, either to strengthen it or so
weaken the agent of infection that the immune
system could easily conquer the invader. He
therefore placed great stock in testing drugs in living
systems and was prepared to continue working with a
compound even after it failed testing on bacteria
cultured in laboratory glassware.

26. Did Domagk do surgery?• Domagk did not perform any surgical procedures
himself but his research and discovery on
sulphonamides and its effect against bacteria and
other microorganisms causing infection extended to
the surgical field. In fact, specialists in the field of brain
surgery have reported that even in cases of brain
injury sulphonamides can be introduced directly into
the wound cavities, thereby preventing abscess
formation and meningitis, which are often fatal.
• Further investigations conducted on puerperal
infections, and especially in cases of septic abortion
through Caesarean section, showed that in a
considerable percentage of cases, sulphonamides
plays a huge role in preventing the presentation of
anaerobic gas gangrene microorganisms.

27. John Jacob Abel
Father of American Pharmacology
American pharmacologist and
physiological chemist who:
• Made important contributions to a
modern understanding of the
ductless, or endocrine, glands.
• Isolated adrenaline in the form of
a chemical derivative (1897) and
crystallized insulin (1926).
• Invented a primitive artificial
kidney.

28. • He suggested in 1912 that an “artificial kidney” might be
utilized in the removal and study of diffusible substances of
the blood.
• An apparatus of coiled collodion tubes surrounded by a
saline solution was soon devised and used for this purpose;
arterial blood was shunted through these tubes and then
returned to the experimental animal’s vein. Using this
technique, Abel succeeded in demonstrating the existence
of free amino acids in the blood. Even at this time(1913),
Abel seems to have been aware of the clinical potential of
what he called his “vividiffusion” apparatus; it might, he
suggested, prove useful in managing renal failure.