Category: Health Professionals

Index Home We often wonder how human and animal bodies work ? Our bodies are an incredible assembly of countless systems. These systems make us see, run, hear, feel, move, talk, taste, react, think, interact, memorise and conceptualise. Further, these increasingly complex actions, are mostly harmonious, like a lifelong orchestra. Physiology is a branch of biology,… Continue reading Three pioneer physiologists, who found how do our bodies work

Index Home The Nobel Prize was instituted in 1901, and the first Nobel in medicine was warded to Von Behring. He shared stage with other luminaries such as Rontgen for Physics, and Henry Dunant for Peace. However, the story behind the first Nobel in Medicine was not without its share of controversies. The award was for… Continue reading Story behind the first Nobel Prize in Medicine

Index Home Marie Curie was first woman scientist to feature on a postage stamp. This was in 1938, a mere four years after her death. The reason for these postage stamps was to celebrate 40 years of discovery of radium. Marie and Pierre Curie had made this discovery in 1898. In 1938, France issued 21 separate… Continue reading Curies discover ways to find Cure for Cancers

Index Home Australia, a continent unknown to the remaining world, was formally colonised by the British in 1788. British sent fleets of convicts, and by 1841 they had more than 1,65,000 of them. With each fleet, came medical personnel, and started setting up hospitals. First tent-hospital was set up in area which is now Sydney in… Continue reading Australian postage stamps on it’s medical legends

Index Home Israel honoured two medical scientists, with a postage stamp-set in 1994. Both, worked on vaccines to prevent infections that are common in the tropics. Both were born, and received their early schooling in regions that were once part of Russian Empire. Being Jew, and faced with persecution, their families migrated westwards. India benefited from… Continue reading Medical scientists on Israeli stamps, and their Indian connection

Index Home Medical students know a deal about microscopists and scientists Robert Koch (who discovered TB bacillus), Rudolf Virchow (who gave us number of terms in pathology) , and Louis Pasteur (a pioneer in development of fermentation, preservation and vaccines). There may be a number of forgotten scientists, but one I stumbled on recently through a… Continue reading A medical scientist forgotten from the public view

Index Home India gained its independence on 15th August 1947, and has issued more than 1100 postage stamps that feature a personality. Mahatma Gandhi featured in a first such stamp in 1948. Over next 75 years, 40 of these “person-stamps” were related to healthcare, less than 4% of the total. First twenty five years (1948-73), and… Continue reading Personalities related to health & medicine in Indian stamps

Index Home The year 1923 was a landmark of sorts for medical philately. On 25th of May, France issued a Louis Pasteur postage stamp. This was the first time, a medical scientist was on a postage stamp. (Barring E Espajo, a doctor-nationalist leader who had featured on a stamp from Ecuador in 1899). Science had finally… Continue reading Science gives a gentle nudge to the monarchs !!

Index Home Many laurels in surgery rest on the shoulders of Anaesthesia and Antisepsis. Anaesthesia is a science that can make a person stuporous, and withstand pain during surgery. On the other hand antisepsis is a set of practices that reduces chances of an infection during a surgery. While anaesthesia was officially born on 16th October… Continue reading A curious case of the “missing” anaesthetist