Podcast summary
Renaissance Medicine (Radio Edit)
Renaissance medicine mixed tradition with institutions
The period still treated disease through Galenic humors and regimen, but England advanced via regulated specialisms, anatomy, and war-driven hospitals—while most care and expertise largely sat with women.
Physicians’ diagnosis relied on urine reading
Physicians spent years training yet often didn’t derive diagnoses from pulse; their signature tool was uroscopy—tasting and interpreting urine—followed mainly by diet “regimen” plus aggressive purging.
Dissolving monasteries shifted public-health capacity
Welfare and “mental health” support were tied to monasteries; Henry VIII’s dissolution created decades of healthcare chaos, later partially replaced through welfare acts and war-driven hospital expansion.
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