Which factor contributed more to Renaissance advances?

I'll have to disagree with you there. I believe that Individuals was the biggest factor to improving knowledge and medicine during the Reanissance. Without Vesailles, Pare and Harvey many people would have still have believed that all of Galen's discoveries were true.

Vesailles proved over 200 of Galen's ideas to be wrong and showed how all the bones fitted together in his book; 'The Fabric Of The Human Body'. He also gave the public a better understanding of the body's anatomy by digging up corpes and dicovering where all the organs were, BUT not what they did.

Chance did come into the equation when it came to Pare. He ran out of oil to seal the open wounds with and by chance made the soothing ointment. However, he also found that tying the arteries up with ligatures stopped death by blood loss.

Harvey was also a very important individual during the Renaissance. He dicovered that the blood acted like a pump and circulated around the body. Without this we could still believe that it just sits in our body.

Overall, you can clearly see that individuals were way more important in the progress of medicine and the understanding of how the body worked than chance.

Granted, Vesalius, Pare and Harvey were all brilliant but, if it wasn't for technology at the time, none of them would have succeeded.

For example, Vesalius would not have been able to spread his ideas around Europe if it hadn't have been for the newly invented printing press. Thus, people would not have been able to read his ideas and have a different opinion on the matter, meaning that Galen's ideas may still have been accepted. Also, Vesalius used artists to draw pictures which helped him illustrate his points.

William Harvey knew that the heart was the control for the flow of blood. He came across this theory with the help of a newly developed Water Pump. The water pump inspired him.

Having said all this, I agree with Molly, because it was the three men who moved the understanding of the human body along, (but they still couldn't explain what caused disease.) But I do believe technology played a great importance, i believe that the three doctors would struggle to get their points across because it would have taken ages to publish their books plus, Harvey would not have had his inspiration. Without technology, their ideas (especially Vesalius' and Harvey's), would not have been as popular?

The discovery of penicillin wasn't during the renaissance?! Oops, it's so confusing with all the similar words! But thank you