Today we toured the St. Louis Cathedral, the Ursuline Convent, and the Pharmacy Museum. In the inside of the Cathedral we got to see the different art/paintings/stained glass that was on the walls and ceilings. We got to see the alter, and hear how the bishops are buried below it when they pass away. We got to see the paintings and stained glass windows that covered the walls and the ceilings. In the Ursuline Convent we got to learn about how the sisters helped educate young women and how they were some of the first nurses to the royal hospital in New Orleans. In 1788, the fire that left over eighty percent of the city burned, did not harm the Ursuline Convent. We were told a tale of how this came to be. There is a statue by the name of "Little Sweetheart" that is roughly twelve inches tall that the sisters prayed to, to keep the fire away from them, and it worked. As the fire was getting closer, they put the statue in the window and the flames blew back and the fire was put out by the wind. At the pharmacy museum we got to see how "doctors" back in the early 18-1900's helped their "patients". We learned that back then there was really no licensing laws that were in place, so if you wanted to practice medicine you easily could. Many of the medications from those times were things that took an immense toll on the body. These doctors were trying to rid their patients of whatever was going on in some of the most violent ways possible. For example, doctors were shoving mercury down the throats of people who suffered from yellow fever. Back then, we didn't have any idea of what was going on. Nowadays, medicine is different and it requires you to have a license and we have figured out the ways in which hand washing is essential for not transmitting disease. We got to see how the old instruments that were used for things like eyeball donation, abortion, going to the restroom while in bed (bedpan), worked. I am grateful to live in a time where the human race knows more about disease today and where we have the potential to come up with newer and improved ways to survive. The moment that impacted me the most was when the tour guide at the pharmacy started talking about how doctors back then and still to this day use leeches to help with reconstructive surgery's because they help with the clotting process and help vascularization. This reminded me of the Grey's Anatomy episode where George O'Malley had to put leeches on a patient to do exactly that, promote healing and new tissue formation by optimizing vascularization. The patient went crazy and wanted to keep one of the leeches that was used in the end because he heard that they just throw them out afterwards. I mostly enjoyed the pharmacy because it was nice seeing where health care was at one point in time, compared to what it had developed into now.
No comments:
Post a Comment