The Medical reform movement

Language ArtsPeriod 2

The Medical Reform Movement

• This reform movement occurred due to the mistreatments that patients experienced in the hospitals.

• The medical reform movement took several of tries/events throughout our time-history to actually form this movement .

• This really changed the way hospitals function now a days.

The Medical Reform Movement • During the 17th -18th century

many people suffered from mistreatments in hospitals ; the medicine at this time wasn’t advanced enough to help cure people correctly.

• Most doctors at this time were inexperienced, hospitals were unsanitary, patients were treated poorly, there was lack of money, and the medicine wasn’t quite advanced.

Major issue – Lack of Experience• The lack of experience in the medical

field was a major issue. The doctors at this time had just a little more than a high school diploma. This meant that it took only a few years until one could graduate and get their bachelors degree. Also, the training the doctors had was not very adequate. In this time period the doctors didn’t really have much knowledge in medicine and disabilities. This is why it was hard to advance in medicine . Another thing is that since doctors didn’t really perform much operations it was hard to recognize mistakes that were done. This made it hard to evolve from those mistakes. In conclusion, most doctors trained for only a few years just enough to be recognized as doctor .

In the 19 century an operation was an amazing thing. Due to the lack of medical knowledge and weak medicines anything could go wrong with operations.

Major issue- hygiene• Hygiene was one of the most important

major issue of the medical reform movement . The hospital buildings were unsanitary and they were in a bad condition. For example the Waverly Hills Sanatorium did not have windows and was not in a healthy condition. Healthy children were exposed to the sick patients and interacted with them. This later was a problem because it caused diseases to spread more rapidly and to more people. Doctors caused as much harm to patients as the actual disease because doctors were not clean and sanitary. Doctors would not disinfect their materials and would not wear any type of protection (gloves, nose & mouth cover, etc.) including their tools. In all, this hygiene problem really persuaded for a new system.

Here one can clearly see the mistreated rooms but, most importantly the open windows and doors. Everything was exposed to the outside forces.

Major issue- Bad treatment• Most hospitals, especially

asylums, gave bad treatments to their patients. Dorothea Dix brought to the peoples attention the mistreatment that occur in the asylums. She realized that the mistreatment was too much. Some of the hospitals from that time looked like cages or pens. This was not a good place to be in. Dorothea Dix also described how people were abused and beaten with rods. Lastly, the mentally ill people were treated with no respect and compared to criminals.

Prisons at that time mixed mentally ill people.

Major issues- Lack of Money• The medical field wasn’t much of a concern to

the government and society at this time. Much money wasn’t given to the hospitals so they didn’t have enough workers to take care of the patients correctly. At Pennhurst State school and hospital there wasn’t enough staff to take care of the patients . Since some patients didn’t get the attention they got in a worse condition. Also, most kids in this hospital didn’t learn how to walk until the age of 5; most babies weren’t taken out their cradle’s because there wasn’t enough staff to do so. Also, since much money wasn’t given to the doctors’ ,or medical field, students weren’t taught as effectively as other careers at that time may have been taught. Another thing is that medicine and operations couldn’t really improve because the government didn’t provide a lot of money to do so.

Major issue- Medicine

• Medicine being important in the

medical field was a major issue at this

time because it wasn’t advanced enough.

Doctors studied for a short period so

improvement in medicine was at a high

risk. For this reason many sicknesses,

including mental health, couldn’t be

resolved.Technology and lack of

knowledge was also a problem that didn’t

let medicine advance. Medicine began to

improve throughout the years but, it didn’t

really make a startling change. It wasn’t

until the Spanish influenza in 1918 that

medicine actually started to advance and

help improve health problems. Since the

medicine has revolutionized.

Dorothea Dix

• Dorothea Dix helped the mentally ill and the abuse they were getting at the mental institutions.She helped create a bill that spelled out the needs and requirements for the mentally ill.In this bill she requested 100,000 dollars to help finance the project to better asylums. Also, she was one of the first people to actually publish social statistics of what she found in the asylums. Along with that she published books of the asylums and of the movement.She devoted a lot of time to this issue and really did make a change and helped understand this problem better.

Thomas Gallaudet• Thomas Gallaudet helped educate the

deaf along with the help of Laurent Clerc and Mason Cogswell. He co-founded the first institution for the deaf. In this school they would get educated and learn how to communicate with others.The institution was called American Asylum for deaf. Mutes but, its recognized as the American School for the Deaf. This was one of the first institutions.Charles Dickens was someone who was amazed at eh work that Howe was doing a patient named Laura Bridgman who was a deafblind. At this time, 1842, it was a great progress and in 1887 Perkins director (Michael Anagnos) sent graduate Anne sullivan to teach Helen Keller in Alabama. As you can see Thomas Gallaudet was a great influence in the medical (disabled) people.

Samuel G. Howe

Samuel G. Howe• Samuel Gridley Howe was born in Boston on November

1801. He attended Harvard Medical School. He was an advocate of education for the blind.In 1831 Howe visited Paris where he found new ways for educating the blind. By 1832 Howe took what he had learned in Paris and established his own school for the blind in Boston. In July 1832, he began to receive a few blind children in which later turned out to become the Perkins Institution for the blind.In January 1833, the funds were all spent but, much progress was occurring that the legislature approved a fund of 30,000 a year.As the years went by the institution kept getting better.

The Perkins School

Literature

Some books that came out of this reform movement are ….

- Mental Health & Social Policy- The road to Reform the Future of Health Care

in America- Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature

Literature

• Most of the literature that was written is still around today .We still use it to see what we can do better and try to evolve away from those times.I think the literature is still persuading people because as time goes by the health issues keep improving.The literature is important because it helps us see what they did wrong and that way we don’t repeat the same mistakes.

What was used to persuade people to support the movement???

Was the Movement a Success???The movement was definitely a success as we can tell by how the medical system is running now in our time period. We don’t get treated the same way patients at that time got treated. We defiantly have evolved since then regarding medicine and hygiene. We get financial help and we get treated with respect. We know even have the support of the government for studies in the mediacl field and get money to try to come up with different medicines/anti-biotics.

Unanswered Question???

• Why did it have to take so many years until the reform movement actually could progress?

• Why did the government not do anything against the mistreatment that patients had right away ?

• Why was it that people did not complain about the mistreatments they had in the hospitals ?

• Why did the people not argue back to the mistreatment of the patients using the constitution as a helping force?

Would I be involved???• If I was alive during the movement I would have

definitely been involved. Just being aware of the mistreatments posted on the news and articles would have really convinced me to be involved. Dorothea Dix really persuaded people by posting all those books and news feeds. I, being a girl, would have supported this movement even more because besides helping the medical field I would also show that woman can also be strong and make a change. These are some reason I would have supported it. Also, Since I’m interested in the medical field I think that would just be another reason to support this movement. This would help advance the knowledge doctors had and help us advanced the medical field.

People involved In the Medical Movement during the 19 & 20th century

Dorothea Dix July 17, 1887(1887-07-17) (aged 85)

Antonia Gomez

December 3, 1890-???

Samuel G. Howe

November 10, 1801-

January 9, 1876(1876-

01-09) (aged 74)

Change Overtime

Ethics• It applies because this

movement occurred to prevent the unethical issues that was happening at the hospitals.

• There was injustice with the mentally ill and woman at that time.

• The mentally ill were treated like prisoners; woman could just be put in asylums by their husband’s say.

Parallel • This icon can apply because the

way the mentally ill people were treated is similar to the way prisoners were treated .

• Also, this movement can be compared to the way the prison system worked.

• Both the Medical and Prison system lacked knowledge and equality of the situation that was occurring.

Trends

• This icon can apply because there was a trend in all the major issues in this movement which was lack of education or knowledge.

• Lack of knowledge was one of the reasons the Medical Reform movement had to start.

• Lack of knowledge of the mentally ill was the reason that the movement began, and lack of knowledge in hygiene was the problem for the unsanitary in the medical field.

Patterns • The patterns icon can apply

because there was a pattern in

the way people tried to convince

the people to support this

movement. • The pattern that can be noticed is

that they posted evidence in the

news and news feed of what hey

saw was wrong.• They tried to show how the

disabled or mentally ill were no

different then us.• They tried to explain how the

problem was effecting society for

example hygiene and infections.

Different Perspective • This icon can apply because

the people that contributed to this reform movement (Dorothea Dix, Samuel G Howe, and etc.) had a different perspective of the situation.

• They saw the problems and unethical issues that were occurring.

• They thought different of what society thought was right.

Origin • The beginning of this

reform movement was in Europe as a reaction against the heroic Medicine.

• Germany became the main place for research, training, and studying in the nineteenth century.

• In these places was where the movement actually began.

convergence• This icon applies because there were three main

causes that helped make this movement actually occur.

• Dorothea’s persuasive demands was important to reform the mentally ill.

• The perkins school for the blind also, helped the medical field.

• The Europe and German influence also helped contribute to this medical reform movement.

Main Idea and Details

Bibliography• "Dorothea Dix Begins her crusade." Mass Moments. mass humanities, n.d.

Web. 2/14/11. <http://massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=96>.• "History of the Organization and the Movement." Mental Health America.

mass humanities, n.d. Web. 2/14/14. <http://www.nmha.org/index.cfm?objectId=DA2F000D-1372-4D20-C8882D19A97973AA>.

• N.K, . "Reform Movements of the 19th Century." associatedcontent from yahoo. yahoo, march 15, 2006. Web. 2/14/11. <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/21686/reform_movements_of_the_19th_century.html?cat=37>.

• "The Case of Mrs. Packard and Legal Commitment." U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Diseases of the Mind Home, Last updated: 25 February 2008. Web. 14 Feb 2011. <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/diseases/debates.html>.

The End :D