This path was created by Alex Fitch.
Introduction
Within the chapter on advancements of photography in medicine, three main advancements come into conversation. They include the X-Ray, the CT scan, and the MRI. This chapter will go into detail how an X-Ray can prove a broken bone, prove a sprained ankle, or even show an image of the chest to examine someone who has a serious cough. On the other hand, this chapter will discuss how a CT scan can show and pick up a mental illness, specifically Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally and other mental disorders can be related. It is shown through in the scan when the region in shaded completely in black more than it is in a normal brain. The scans can be lifesavers in determining if someone has this disorder in a court case, especially Kip Kinkel’s case that occurred in Oregon for the result of the Thurston High School shooting.
The next chapter is all about how anatomy examination and how it helps with advancements in medicine and science. This can include X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs. However, what this chapter will describe above those, is the newest advancement that technology that advances knowledge of the body without using a cadaver. This device is called the Anatomage Table. This table allows any aspiring health science major to learn the parts of the body and how to treat them without ever having to have human interaction. It implies someone can learn all the anatomy without ever touching a real person. This chapter finishes off by also describing how important the cadaver can be to advance knowledge as well.
The next chapter explains the importance of the sonogram. A sonogram can also be called an ultrasound, and it can be defined as the visual image produced by reflected sound waves at higher frequencies than the human ear, to image the developing baby as well as the mother’s reproductive organs. The chapter describes how important and monumental this stage in the pregnancy can be. It also discusses the fear it brings to others, relating to the idea of abortion. The chapter discusses a bill that was proposed in Virginia, that was thankfully not passed, and would invade not only women’s rights but their privacy in this difficult process of the idea.
The art of looking is a concept that was of deep interest for Michel Foucault because it is the basis for truth. In the medical world, looking has many different levels from the surface to the body’s interior. The “medical gaze” was one of the terms coined by Foucault and it still keeps its meaning and value to this day. In the natural sciences, looking is the initial route to knowledge and its also a way of being sure of something, which proves the saying “seeing is believing”. The twentieth century brought about many technological advancements; including MRIs, CAT scans, ultrasound, fiber optics. Microphotographs of the body’s interior parts like cells and capillaries are also a large part of the technology that helped change the way things are perceived. Lennart Nilsson was an important contributor to the discovery of how things in the body that are invisible to the naked eye actually look.
The ability to see inside the body are important to knowing how we function and what is or could be wrong with a person. Images of the body’s interior are readable and they give the sense that the body is adaptable. A body’s genetics can be identified as a digital map that once it can be read, everything becomes understandable. Going back to vision, people are more what is on the inside than what they are on the outside which basically means it is based on genetics.
Morphed images were used to get a visual idea of what a combination of two or more identities would look like through composite photographs. There is more to the creation of new individuals than what comes to mind immediately. Sir Francis Galton and Nancy Burson were two of the more well known individuals who found an interest in morphing images but they were on slightly different ends of the spectrum when it came to their reason for it.
Ever since the sixteenth century scientists, doctors, professors, and artists have been obsessed with visualizing the inside of the human body. Anatomical theaters were introduced to universities to help introduce anatomy to students and others. The two most recognizable anatomical theaters are in Padua, Italy and Leiden, Netherlands. Even today television shows such as “The Knick” has shown live dissections taking place showing that the study of anatomy is still a popular subject today.
Human’s have been so obsessed with visualizing the inside of the human body that innovative technology is always being created to make visualizing the inside of the human body much easier. X – ray machines were first used during the late 1890s to make visualizing bone structure simpler. Ultrasound and sonogram machines were first used in the mid-1950s to allow for the imaging of unborn fetuses inside of the expecting mother. Lastly, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines have been used the late 1970s for imaging soft tissues such as the brain and ligament.
Pharmaceuticals have been using direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising since the early 1960s. Unlike the typical form of advertising, DTC advertising is directed directly toward the patients rather than the healthcare professional. There are many pros to DTC advertising like the economic impact and public health. However, there are also many cons also such as the economic impact, the decrease in doctor-patient relationships, drug safety, and medicalization.