The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1933

Thomas Hunt Morgan

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1933 was awarded to Thomas H. Morgan "for his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity".

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : No. 1 beyond question

India consolidated its position at the top of Test cricket with the 2-0 win over Australia — its first clean-sweep against that country in a series spanning two or more matches — and in so doing, confirmed the role reversal in world cricket's most absorbing rivalry. For nearly a decade, India was Australia's counterpoint, the contender who helped define the champion's legacy. But as victories in Mohali and Bangalore showed, the challenger has surpassed the champion — who, it must be noted, has slipped from the world-beating standard it set for so long. Ricky Ponting's side contained perhaps the weakest Australian bowling unit ever to visit India. The tourist's batting was vulnerable to reverse-swing and finger-spin, skills India is adept in. The out-cricket, for which Australia is renowned, repeatedly broke down when pressured by the home side. Vitally, the home side mastered its opponent in the battle of wills, a contest Australia seldom loses.

India's triumph was led by its council of elders but encouragingly, its young cricketers played their part with aplomb when called on. While V.V.S. Laxman saved his side from going one-down at Mohali, playing an innings of high art under extreme pressure, Sachin Tendulkar extended his Bradmanesque sequence of run-making in 2010. Where batsmen normally fade as they age, Tendulkar has got better at 37. This year alone, the great man has scored 1270 Test runs with six centuries (two of which were doubles) at an average of 97.69; consider that earlier this year he also became the first batsman to make an ODI double-hundred and it's clear we're witnessing something very special. Zaheer Khan, India's spearhead, played a decisive part in the series win with his penetration with the new ball and his artfulness with the old. Harbhajan Singh didn't reach the heights expected of a major lead-spinner but managed crucial wickets. Although Pragyan Ojha performed creditably as second spinner, India's bowling remains an area of concern; there wasn't a satisfactory audition for the role of Zaheer's new-ball partner. Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, and Cheteshwar Pujara offered hope that India's batting transition, when it happens, won't be as painful as initially feared. But they require considerate handling. For Australia, Shane Watson and Ben Hilfenhaus impressed, but it was the heroic Ponting, yet to win a Test in India as captain, who most enhanced his reputation. Most significantly, the sides gave the fans a grand, dramatic Test series, showing the classical format at its many-splendoured best. In fulfilling their pledge to the game at a time of desperate need, they did Test cricket the greatest service possible.

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : No. 1 beyond question

How Golgi Shared the 1906 Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Cajal

How Golgi Shared the 1906 Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Cajal

How Golgi Shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Cajal

by Gunnar Grant*
12 September 1999

Camillo Golgi was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine as early as 1901, when the first prize was awarded. After that, his name came up every year until 1906, when he was finally awarded the prize together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

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Cricket’s ecstasy, and agony – V.R. Krishna Iyer

Justice Iyer on cricket.

A.G. Gardiner, through his felicitous essays, can be said to have made cricket a glorious game. And he portrayed cricketers as the true heroes and the finest of gentlemen. He made K.S. Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Saheb of Nawnagar, and other princes with the bat and the ball, immortal. With his matchless pen he made this essentially British game, and the Lord’s cricket ground, a greater empire of sports than the political Commonwealth.

The princes of the game are worshipped with affection, not out of any authority that they wield but from sheer idolatry. Where they play is hallowed ground. The pitch, the stumps, the fateful wickets. The bowlers with their killer-balls are sacred, and the players look regal in their attire.

The bat and the ball meet, and then a boundary or a no-ball, a catch and an ‘out’, with expectations suddenly darkening into dismal doom. A million faces brighten with a sixer in the sky. When centuries soar with each ball or stroke of the bat, every cell of the excited spectator throbs. Vibrant bodies turn into a marvel of wonder when the last batsman is bowled out of what was once a hallowed pitch. The game is over and your pocket is poorer, but your heart is warmer. Your ‘eleven’ has won or lost, depending on a hundred factors, the most unpredictable of them being the weather — as happened in Kochi in mid-October. Sections of the media had even appealed to the rain god to be kind to the players, and to the eager thousands who had parted with their money for a glimpse of the great game.

Excellence in action on the turf. Missing a fine catch, but sixes and boundaries and ducks and run-out in a second by a slip and sometimes your wicket by your own bat. Glory and gloom. Double centuries and suddenly a duck, depending on the luckless leg before the wicket. The lovely googly when the ball deceives the batsmen into a disaster. The exquisite uncertainty of rain and sun. All this is cricket, as in life.

Cricket is a royal game among other pedestrian games. A Don Bradman is the rarest of the rare who with a turn of the willow banishes the ball off the earth to find it fall beyond the boundary. Gardiner wrote: “The greatness of an artist lies in the economy of his effort. Schiller burns a whole city to produce an effect of terror and Shakespeare drops a handkerchief and freezes our blood.”

Ranjitsinhji turns the willow as the bowler puffs, breathes fire and spins the ball. The next moment the ball is at the boundary and the great batsman has not even moved a bit. He was a prince of a little state but the King of a great game.

Look at the magic of Little Master Sachin Tendulkar, lionised by the world not only for the magic of his batting but his culture. He is still a wizard with the bat and the ball. He opens his chest not only to face the fastest bowlers but also to offer all he can to alleviate distress among every one of the deprived and the lost.

Yet, cricket is indeed life with its pathos and bathos. Often cricket has villains to encounter. The penniless poverty of the little Indian in his hundreds of thousands, but with the passion to buy pleasure out of his home in the open, to escape from the slums, huts and hovels, and the concrete holes that rise high, apartments that are sometimes elegant only in appearance.

But, for Kochi, the Queen of the Arabian Sea, it was a day of dismal despair, for the match was off. Some triumphs, some tragedies.

A couple of crores of cricket-lovers, sans caste, gender, race and religion, gather in a fraternity. All eyes are focussed on the ground, the wicket, the bat and the ball. Each is praying for fine weather and victory for his or her XI. If the weather is bright, the bosoms of the masses would sing, otherwise it would sink.

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GREAT EVENTS OF THE 20th CENTURY.

1): Wings for a new world 1903…The aero plane was invented by the Wright brothers. Wilbur and Orwille. The first plan is named’ Kitty Hawk’ and can be seen at the Smithsonian Museum in the USA.

Air Conditioninig (US)

2)The Movies come of Age: 1903: Thomas Alva Edison discovered the cinema. He introduced it as a Vitascope.The first silent movie was ‘The great train Robbery lasting a dew minutes. Now the Cinema industry has spread world wide and spawns a huge number of people.

3):A new key to the atom..1903: Madam Curie and her husband Pierre Curie discover Radium. Both of them got the Nobel prize, bur Marie Curie went on to win another Nobel Prize. Her daughter was also awarded the Nobel Prize.

THE PACE OF INVENTION..1900-1918

1900: Air conditioning…(US)

           Photoelectric Cell. ( Germany)

1901:  First Transatlantic Wireless Signal..(Brit.)

            Safety Razor patented in US by King GIllete.

            Electric Vacuum Cleaner US

1903:  First controlled heavier than Air flighjt…see above.

            Oxy acetaline welding.(Fra.)

             ECG.(Netherland)..by Einthovan

1904: Vacuum Tube (Diode)..For Radio.(Brit.)

1905: Aspirin marketed in Germany..Bayer and Co.

1906:  Audion Vacuum Tube for Radio(US)

            First Voice broadcast..(US)

             Sound on Film Process(Brit.)

             Photocopier.(US). Called Xerox frm Greek word meaning dry printing.

             

Galen in Greek Medicine.

As noted earlier Galen was from Peragamon and he travelled to Rome. Many orthopaedic surgeons consider him the"The father of Sports Medicine".

He gave a god accont of the skeleton and the nerves. He was the first to describe a cervical rib.

He described osteomylitis, the formation of sequestra and their treatment.

He also coined the words kyphosis, lodosis and scoliosis and described some treatment for these conditions.

David L McKintosh was the first sougeon to do operate successfully on a case af Anterior Cruciate ligament injury. This injury used to cripple skiers and ice dancers in the prime of life. Modern orthopaedics has allowed much smaller incisions through which you can intrduce implants, enabling the surgery to be done through smaller incisions and more successfully, allowing numerous athletes to return to their sport and profession.

In the meanwhile Ayurveda spread beyond India through the capture of Sind (India) by the Arabs who translated all the works of Sushruta.

Sushrutha gives us a classification of bones and their reaction to injuries.The types of dislocations and fractures is systematically described.(Sandhimuktha and Kandabhagna).

He has described the various principles of fracture tretment like reduction, apposition, rest, healing and also the principles of rehabilitation.

Since war was and still is the major cause of injuries they have been described seperately as Salya tantra.

Sushrutha Samita, one of the books written by by Sushrutha is the foudation stone of Ayurveda (literally the science of life). The other compendium is written by Charaka and is known as the Charaka Samhita. Sushruthas compendium is based on that of his teacher Divodasa Dhanvanthri. Sushrutha himself is the son of Vedic sage Visvamitra. His writings are dated about 100AD. Unlike the Charaka's compendium Sushruta has devoted a number of chapters on surgery and emphasised the need for careful dissection before becoming a surgeon.

Skiers, Sportsmen and suffered from Anterior cruciate ligament injury, which ruined their career. David l McIntosh was the first to operate on an anterior cruciate ligament injury successfully. After this numerous developments have made this procedure invaluable for sportsmen and is usually done by sports medicine specialists.Modern surgery has made this operation less invasive and better implants have given surer results.

Early Ortopaedics

Jean Andre Venal, often described as the father of orthopaedic surgery, established a hospital for the treatment off skeletal deformities in children in the year 1780.

Most of the developements in orthopaedics occured, as can be expected, during wars.

Antonius Mathysen was the first to describe and use plaster of Paris in1851.