Index Home Man has known malaria for centuries. It is a fever, that comes with shaking chills, a lot of pain, and turns white of the eyes yellow. Sometimes this fever also affects the brain, intestines, and kidneys. While, its cause was known only in 1880s, ancient physicians knew this fever well. It would strike, go-away… Continue reading Cinchona comes to rescue the world
Author: rjoshimgims
Award for most popular health plant goes to Aloe vera
Index Home We all may look at tall and mighty in awe, but we love the grounded. This surely is true for the most popular health plant in the current times. If google-search hits are a reliable metric, this award goes to Aloe vera. In the post-covid world, Aloe vera has become a real money-spinner. Pundits… Continue reading Award for most popular health plant goes to Aloe vera
Ingredients in Traditional Chinese Medicine
Index Home For Indians, lands beyond the Himalayas were always an enigma. Till the beginning of 20th century, parts of Tibet were still unexplored. While, a couple of Chinese pilgrims did travel through India between 4th and 7th centuries, there is no such Indian account of Chinese society. Further, almost all foreign invasions into India were… Continue reading Ingredients in Traditional Chinese Medicine
Eleven Herbs from High hills in postage stamps
Index Home I grew up in the Himalayas, highest hills in the world. Like all children, we would walk down to the school or run up and down the hills to play. A striking find across the hills are a plethora of plants all around us. We enjoyed not only the tall pines and deodars, but… Continue reading Eleven Herbs from High hills in postage stamps
World AIDS day 2024:Take the rights path
Index Home HIV stigma, perpetuates inequality Stigma befriends some diseases.In ancient times it was Leprosy, followed by Syphillis, and in the modern times HIV. In ancient times, individuals with a flat-nose, a tell-tale sign of leprosy, were disqualified from becoming priest. By 1450s, we feared and hid sexually transmitted syphillis. Advent of antibiotics and changing sexual… Continue reading World AIDS day 2024:Take the rights path
Changing symbolism and slogans in HIV-AIDS philately
Index Home Part 1 (1981-2007) Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Scientific evidence shows that the virus sneaked into human beings around 1920s. We realised its existence, about six decades later, in early 1980s. Mankind had just emerged from successful small-pox eradication, when in 1981, Center of disease control (CDC) reported a cluster… Continue reading Changing symbolism and slogans in HIV-AIDS philately
Plant remedies for health in Indian stamps
Index Home Plants are ancient. Evolution of plants began about 400 million years ago. Humans arrived much later on the scene, only about 4-million years ago. Beginning of agriculture and first civilisation is even more recent, only about 12,000 years old. Tiny, small, large or gigantic; versatility in size, produce, and function of plants has always… Continue reading Plant remedies for health in Indian stamps
Count, analyze and interpret: Data for health
Index Home Latin word datum means ‘to give’. In english this word means a ‘single piece of information‘. As information grows from singular to pleural, it becomes ‘data’. We subconsciously collect and process data all the time. For instance, a mere look at the watch tells us minutes, which our brain processes as remaining time for… Continue reading Count, analyze and interpret: Data for health
“Hospital on a train” & its postage stamps
Index Home We have all heard the story of James Watt, who probably inspired by a fluttering lid of a kettle, invented steam engine in 1769. About 35 years later, Richard Trevithick, a British engineer developed first steam-engine powered locomotive. Thereafter, trains ruled surface transport, as automobiles were more than a century away. By 1850s, passenger… Continue reading “Hospital on a train” & its postage stamps
Telecom and health in 1980 and origins of Telemedicine
Index Home About four decades ago, in 1980 there was no public internet (or World Wide Web). While idea of internet (or connected computers) did exist, it started taking shape only in 1990s. Unlike today, we did not have compact personnel computers, or laptops and even mobile phones. All these developments were also a decade away.… Continue reading Telecom and health in 1980 and origins of Telemedicine