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Verne's Futuristic Health care

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quentin skrabec

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Oct 1, 2024, 3:15:05 PM10/1/24
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OBSCURA ET TRIVIA: 11            Random research notes by Quentin R. Skrabec, Ph.D

                                    Health Care


 Image 4 of 4 for The Begum's Fortune. With An Account of the Mutineers of the Bounty.

                I have focused on technology in my reread of all my English editions. Still, this description of Frankville in Begum’s Millions is a near-perfect representation of today’s healthcare system in the United States. The US is mixing socialism and capitalism, as Verne notes in his Frankville! The resemblance is striking!

               

“Hospitals are few in number, for the system of house nursing is general [in the US hospitals are closing and home nursing industry is booming], and they are reserved for homeless strangers and exceptional cases. The idea of making the hospital larger than any other building, and of putting seven or eight hundred patients under one roof, so as to make a centre of infection, would not enter the head of the founders of this model city. This is the plan pursued in the houses, the hospitals being merely for the temporary accommodation of the most pressing cases [exactly our system here and being pushed by insurance companies!].”

 

                 "Another ingenious institution is that of a body of experienced nurses, specially trained for the purpose, and always at the disposal of the public [ Doctor assistants are a major career and requires college degree]. These women, being carefully chosen, are most valuable and devoted aids to the doctors. They bring into the bosom of families that practical knowledge, so necessary and yet so often absent ; the time of danger it is their mission to prevent thespread of the disease as well as to tend the sick.”

 

“To avoid the use of excitingpoisons, to practise bodily exercises, to conscientiouslyperform every day some appointed duty, to drink purewater, to eat fresh meat and vegetables simply prepared,to sleep regularly seven or eight hours a night, such is theA B C of health” [ this preventive approach is the core approach of our insurance companies]

p. 152 " Individual and collective cleanliness is the great idea ofthe founders of Frankville.”

Hygienic training in grade school  and government regulation [Unfortunately, the US is moving toward more government regulation such as required flu shots etc.]

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