European Culture

One of the things I noticed about European Culture, specifically in Rome, is that driving is much more aggressive. When trying to cross the street, cars often get very close to the crosswalks. In America, a car that is turning typically waits until the crosswalk is clear until moving ahead. In Rome, however, cars and mopeds push into the crosswalks sometimes forcing pedestrians to stop crossing the streets. Intersections that do not have traffic lights are a fight between cars and pedestrians, with both parties cutting in front of the other to get across the intersection. Another aggressive driving technique is commonly used by people on mopeds or motorcycles. Mopeds tend to weave through traffic like they are playing frogger, trying to get in front of all the other cars stopped at the red light.

SREF

One thing I learned at the history of medicine museum is how much our medical practices have evolved. They had glass bottles in the museum where they put their medicine. Nowadays they put them in plastic bottles and make sure everything is secure and sterile. Also, the fact that back in the day the instruments they were using werent very sterile just made me think about how many infections that must have taken place in peoples bodies. I am very thankful that in this day in age doctors have figured our how to sterilize everything.
Another thing that I found interesting was the 2nd floor. The things like DNA, kidneys, neurons, EKGs, etc were put on display and talked about how they came about and details on what the people discovered. I have learned about all of these things in school so I just found it interesting how they found ways on how to start reading the hearts rhythms, DNA, etc. 

European Culture

Rome was an overall good experience. A cultural difference that I saw that was the traffic. In Rome, there are not a lot of dashed lines in the road so people would drive wherever they wanted. Also, it is not typical to see mopeds weaving in and out of parked traffic in Wisconsin so I thought that was interesting. Also, it was often typical to hear a lot of honking which is not exactly heard in Wisconsin in most places.

Dog culture

Me being a lover of dogs, one thing I learned about European culture was that there are dogs everywhere. I am not sure if this is all through out Europe, but it is very prominent in Italy. In the states seeing a dog on the street is very common. The only thing different about Italian dogs is that the dogs were literally everywhere, including inside the shops and restaurants. When we were in Rome we had some free time at a shopping mall and during this time I saw at least four dogs in stores. Another example was a picture that Liz showed me of a dog in a restaurant sitting at a table like it was human. Seeing dogs like this in America is a very rare situation. It was definitely a neat, yet adorable situation. 

SREF

     I visited the History of Medicine Museum for gathering information about my SREF project. While at the museum one thing I learned was that the instruments used were tailored to the doctors that used them. This helped them gain the trust and confidence of their patients. During this time it was especially important because infection was very common and there was no anesthesia. The discussion before going to the museum helped immensely and made learning about the topic more interesting because I was in the right mindset.
     While at the museum I thought being able to see the types of instruments used was very interesting. I liked how it was broken up into different sections. It was hard to tell what certain tools were used for because all of the labels were in Italian. I liked that they had a variety of different things to look at like how they drilled holes in skulls, the wooden box that carried the tools, and the EEG machine.

European Culture

     One of the things I noticed about European culture is that the majority of people tend to dress in a more formal fashion. The women tend to wear dresses or skirts, where as the men I have noticed wear business suits or dress pants with nice shirts. In the evenings when people are going out to eat or just walking in the streets they are dressed very nice. I think that their mindset is your appearance help first impressions and that people care what you look like.
     

SREF

For the SREF project I decided to visit the history of medicine museum which was actually quite interesting. My research paper was on ancient Roman medicine and it was really cool to be able to connect my research to real life exhibits. I was able to see the tools I wrote about, like Hercule related handles on scalps and hooks or trephination surgery and what the after math of that looks like. 

Something I did learn from the museum that I didn’t know was the fact that there was so many tools. From my research I was able to read about a few different tools but nothing to the scale the museum had. There were all different types of hooks, needles, and forceps that relate to today’s modern medicine. It was interesting to see that so many tools have been around for so long. 

 

This is from the trephination surgery.

These are the handles with the design to represent Hercules.

This is an exhibit that had some of the many tools I was unable to find with my research.