week four Soc490

Over the past two weeks we have visited two museums oriented towards healthcare. The first was the Museum of the Mind, and the second was the National History Museum of the Medical Arts. I was amazed by both museums and felt they were very educational. Although both museums were quite different there were some similarities. 

I noticed that the museums had similar glassware for storing medicines. Both were very old and also both were very unique. I’d say that my favorite out of the two was the National History of the Medical Arts. I think that this museum appealed to me because I will be going into a medical career and I have learned a lot about the human body and all the aspects dealing with the human body. 

Seeing all of the old molds for teaching was very interesting, I had never really considered how people learned about the body back then and the molds were a very good idea in my eyes. Also I loved seeing all of the instruments they used back then; my favorite was probably the microscopes. My second favorite would have to be the little room which used to be a laboratory for making chemicals. 

Experiencing this museum was an incredible experience and helps put into perspective how far we have come in medical technologies. After seeing this museum I’d have to say that I think we are pretty capable for controlling our health with the many technologies we have. In addition to the technologies we also have the ability to control or health in other ways. 

A way to control your health that we could take from the Romans would be the example of the Baths. We visited the Caracalla baths a while ago but I’d like to think that the baths were just the beginning of being aware of our health. The baths were a place where the Romans could go to work out in the gyms, and also a place where they could cleanse their bodies in steam rooms and in the baths themselves. 

The Romans now have universal healthcare and everyone enjoys the benefits of having healthcare. Having universal health care is said to affect many things and one that really jumped out to me was the life expectancy of Italians and Americans. Americans life expectancy is 78.2 years old and Italians life expectancy is 81.7 years old.

 Although this does not seem like a huge difference I think it is something to comment on. Italians get health care when they need it and take advantage of that to be at their healthiest at all times. Furnas states, “The status quo of American health care is spending more money to cover fewer people, yielding disappointing out comes”. From statistics this quote seems to be very true. Maybe the status quo of American health care should be changed to spending money to cover all people, yielding surprising out comes?