Circumcision

Circumcision
Circumcision might well be claimed to be the most ancient ‘elective’ operation and was practice in Ancient Egypt by assistants to the priests on the priests and on members of Royal families.

There is remarkable evidence for this carved on the tomb of a high ranking royal official which was discovered in the Sakkara cemetery in Memphis and is dated between 2400 and 3000 BC.

The ancient Jews may have learned the art of circumcision during their bondage in Egypt and, indeed, circumcision is the only surgical procedure mentioned in the Old Testament, the practice of circumcision among Jews being attributed to Abraham.

Early ethnological studies revealed that circumcision was practiced very widely among primitive communities, including those of equatorials Africa, the Bantus, Australian Aborigines and in South America and the South Pacific, as well as being traditional among Jews, Muslims and Copts.

Its origin, perhaps as a fertility or initiation rite or possibly for cleanliness or hygiene. Its traditional basis is confirmed by the fact that in many communities, even though metal instruments were available, the operation was still performed with a flint knife.
Circumcision

Dr Michael DeBakey

Dr Michael DeBakey
He was heart surgeon, who served as an advisor to US presidents for more than 40 years. He died on July 11, 2008 at the age of 99.

DeBakey was the pioneer of bypass surgery and helped develop more than 70 surgical instruments in a career spanning 75 years. He was known as American heart surgeon, innovator, medical educator, and international medical statesman. DeBakey was the chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas and director of the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center. He helped turn Baylor College from a provincial school into one of the nation’s great medical institutions.

DeBakey was born September 7, 1908, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the son of Lebanese immigrants. He got interested in medicine while listening to physicians chat at his father's pharmacy.

He received his bachelor's and medical degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans, where he was elected to Alpha Omega (A.O.A) honorary medical society. He completed his internship and residency in surgery at charity Hospital in New Orleans and his surgical fellowships at the University of Strasburg, France and University of Heidelberg, Germany.

He recalled in 1999 that the time he finished medical school in 1932, "there was virtually nothing you could do for heart disease. If a patient came in with a heart attack, it was up to God."

While still a medical student in 1932 he developed the pump which would be used 20 years later to keep blood moving in the body during open heart surgery.

DeBakey has operated on more than 60 000 patients in Houston alone. His patients include princes and paupers, celebrities and unknowns the world over, all of whom receive the same high standards of excellence in healthcare.

In 1996, aged 87, he flew to Russia to examine President Boris Yeltsin and later oversaw his heart bypass surgery in Moscow and helped save his life. Yeltsin died of heart failure aged 76 last year.

Dr. DeBakey was a member of the most distinguished medical societies, having served as President of many of them. He was a founder and the first Editor of the Journal of Vascular Surgery. He was Editor of the Year Book of General Surgery for fourteen years.
Dr Michael DeBakey

Water

Water
Water is one of the oldest known beverages and one of the first to be medicinally characterized with respect to effect on health. The Chakara-Samhita document is the oldest known Asian medical text (1500 BCE). The text presents a classification of common beverages for physician and addresses their presumed medical properties and attributes:

“Water by nature has six qualities: cold, pure, wholesome, palatability, clean, light. When water falls to earth it depends for its properties on the containing soil. Water in white soil is astringent. Water in pale soil is bitter. Water in brown soil is alkaline. Water in hilly areas is pungent. Water in black soil is sweet. Water derived from rain, hailstone, and snow has unmanifested ‘rasa’ (taste); Fresh rain water of the rainy season is heavy blocks body channels and is sweet; ….Rivers with water polluted with soil, feces, insects, snakes, and rats and carrying rain water aggravates all ‘dosas’.”

The Nei Ching dates to Han dynasty times (207 BCE – 220 CE) in ancient China and demonstrated the wide range in beverage choices that had rapidly become available and how they were closely associated with medicine and the healing process. The ancient Chinese medical system defined five organs (heart, liver, lung, kidney and spleen) and integrated factors of hot cold, wet dry, male-female, set within a complex integration of Yang, Neutrality and Yin. Alcoholic beverages (except beer) and coffee are classified as Yang or hot/heating, whereas fruit juices, milk, tea and unboiled water are classified as Yin or cold/cooling.

Furthermore, Chinese Buddhist monks followed strict dietary codes that limited their eating time to morning hours, and the foods/beverages forbidden to them included: fermented items, milk, cream, fish and meat.
Water