Medical Conditions In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Medical Conditions: Back then, America’s biggest concern wasn’t how their condition was or what treatment they’ll be needing, but was how they were going to pay for it. This is still a common problem today but isn’t as big of a problem as it was back then. Public hospitals were also understaffed due the Great Depression. This resulted in people leaving the hospital without any type of treatment. Some people wouldn’t even be able to make it to the hospitals, yet alone a doctor because of how far they were usually located and transportation was very limited back then. This situation occurs in the novel. In the novel, Lennie injures Curley and, he is in desperate need of a doctor. For them to get to a doctor, they would have to go into town. This isn’t a big issue for them as they have their own, easy way of transportation which they were fortunate to have. Since they didn’t have any antibiotic, childhood immunizations, or high-tech procedures, people often died of diseases rarely seen today. Their life expectancy was low as well; an American women’s life expectancy was 62 years old and an American man’s life expectancy was 52 years old. Medicine today has advanced dramatically from before. Not only
Treatments in the past have been eliminated after extensive research proved that they didn’t work. Though progress has been made, there is still a lot our society needs to work on. There is still discrimination against mental illness occurring today. There are many people invalidating their mental illnesses, claiming that they’re either just “lazy” or “dumb. The modern-day media is also to blame for this. Violent perpetrators are occasionally portrayed as mentally ill, which causes the public to perceive other mentally ill people as “crazy” or “weird”. We may have gotten better in terms of treatment and social acceptability, but understanding mental illness is the next thing we need to work