Ideas of health – Page 33 – Dr Ramakanta's Ideas

Pill to Kill disease

Agent, Host and Environment. Hardly a century ago, we used to go for a change of air for chronic diseases like Tuberculosis or die from simple infections of wounds at home. This has given rise to the era of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes at hill stations. In Railways we are still issuing Change of airContinue reading “Pill to Kill disease”

Father Damien

In 1856, the Hawaiian government forcibly quarantined its lepers on the remote island of Molokai. Father Damien was a Belgian priest who, at great risk to his own health, moved to Molokai in 1873 to care for the leper community. Father Damien built an orphanage on the island. He would change sufferers’ bandages with hisContinue reading “Father Damien”

Saint Vitus Dance

The “Dancing Plague” One day in 1518 in Strasbourg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, a woman started spontaneously dancing in the street, and she only stopped dancing when she collapsed from exhaustion. Other townsfolk began joining in as well, jerking their limbs in every which way. More and more people danced until bloodContinue reading “Saint Vitus Dance”

The fall of Incas

Incas of Peru were a great civilization. In fact they were the greatest empire of the sixteenth century world. They had an army of 80,000. In 1525, they had an unusual visitor. It was only a small group of Spanish explorer. But one of the Spaniard was infected with small pox. This Spaniard infected theContinue reading “The fall of Incas”

John Snow and the Pump Handle he dismantled.

(The London of John Snow displays the handle of Pump at Broad Street that he dismantled.) John Snow ( March 15 1813) is considered to be the father of modern epidemiology for the statistical mapping methods he initiated In the early Nineteenth century, physicians in Europe were convinced that cholera was caused by bad-smelling air.Continue reading “John Snow and the Pump Handle he dismantled.”