In three separate research surveys that surveyed the 125 medical schools offering a MD degree, the 19 medical schools offering a DO degree, and 585 schools of nursing in the United States: 60 percent of U.S. medical schools offering a MD degree teach complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), 95% of Osteopathic medical school teach CAM, and 84.8% of US schools of nursing teach CAM.
Phytoncides are antimicrobial volatile organic compounds derived from plants. The word, which means "exterminated by the plant", was coined in 1937 by Dr. Boris P. Tokin, a Russian biochemist from Leningrad University.
Garlic has been found to lower total cholesterol levels, mildly reduce blood pressure, reduces platelet aggregation, and has antibacterial properties
The use of herbs to treat disease is almost universal among native peoples.
Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is a medication prescribed for individuals (usually children) who have an abnormally high level of activity or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 3 to 5 percent of the general population has the disorder, which is characterized by agitated behavior and an inability to focus on tasks. Methylphenidate also is occasionally prescribed for treating narcolepsy. Methylphenidate is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant. It has effects similar to, but more potent than, caffeine and less potent than amphetamines. It has a notably calming effect on hyperactive children and a "focusing" effect on those with ADHD.
More than 100 years ago, the felt hat makers of England used mercury to stabilize wool. Most of them eventually became poisoned by the fumes, as demonstrated by the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Breathing mercury's fumes over a long period of time will cause erethism, a disorder characterized by nervousness, irritability, and strange personality changes.
Ricin is a protein produced by the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, which is highly toxic (the minimal lethal dose is around 1 µg / kg body weight, that means 1/15th of a milligram could kill a 150 lb. person). Ricin can be a dangerous contaminant, making the production of castor oil a precisely controlled process.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Elvis' twin brother Jesse is still at the hospital where the two were born. The hospital won't release the body.
The chance of contracting an infection during a hospital stay in the USA is 1 in 15.
This just putting two facts together: the reason that sharks do not get cancer is because their bodies are made completely of cartalige.
Most deaths in a hospital are between the times of 4pm and 6pm, the time when the human body is at its weakest.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death overall, but injuries are the leading cause of death for ages 1 to 40.
One in three Americans visits an emergency department each year. Forrest General averages more than 75,000 patients a year in its emergency department alone.
Doctors around the World expect April 9th, 1999 to be a Record setting day for SEXUAL activity. Reason... Chances are the best that your child, if concieved that day, will be born on Jan. 01, 2000.
Special interest groups have tried for years to proove that the fluid used by dry cleaners (perchlothetholine)is cancer causing and harmful. The truth of the matter is that only a few dry cleaners who worked with it daily, nationwide, in the last 100 years, got cancer. In fact, if you need to cure a bad case of 'hook worms', doctors have been known to prescribe you a teaspoon a day of perchlothetholine, the same fluid.
The record for the most pies ever consumed in a single sitting was made by an American,Frank Giblet,on a holiday in Germany. He ate 631 meat pies,each with a diameter of approx 2'.After this he was admitted to a local hospital where he had a minor cardiac arrest.
There are 4 players who have recorded quadruple doubles in NBA history. Nate Thurmond, Alvin Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson.
George Clooney is best known as Dr. Doug Ross on the TV show 'ER' -- in 1984 he played a medical intern named Ace on another medical program that also was set at a Chicago hospital. The show's name was 'E/R'
50%-60% of the most serious bacterial infections are caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which tends to be found in hospitals.
Albright College in Reading, PA is located on the only street listed in Guinness Book of Records as the only U.S. street in which you can live your entire life. The road has neighborhoods, a hospital, an elementary school, a middle school, a high school, a college, at least one church, various businesses (employment), and a cemetery. You can live your whole life and not leave 13th Street.
Albert Einstein wished for his body to be cremated, but his brain to be saved and studied. And thus it was. Thomas Harvey was a pathologist who worked at a small hospital in Princeton, N.J. when Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76. Harvey performed the autopsy, determined Einstein died of natural causes and took the brain home with him. For approximately twenty two years, the brain was lost, until Steven Levy, a reporter for the New Jersey Monthly, hopped into his car and set out to find it. Find it he did, and it was still in Thomas Harvey's house. After a longer while, he sheepishly told me it was in the very office we were sitting in. He walked to a box labeled 'Costa Cider' and pulled out two big Mason jars. In those were the remains of the brain that changed the world.
The most extreme recorded case of coin-swallowing was recorded by Sedgefield General Hospital, County Durham, England, on January 5, 1958, when it was reported that 366 halfpennies, 26 sixpences, 17 threepences, 11 pennies, and 4 shillings (424 coins), and 27 pieces of wire totalling 5 lbs. 1oz. had been extracted from the stomach of a 54-year-old man.
The highest g-force endured was 82.6g for 0.04 seconds on a water-braked rocket sled by Eli L. Beeding, Jr., at Holloman Air Force Base on May 16, 1958. He was hospitalized for three days.
'Soldiers disease' is a term for morphine addiction. The Civil War produced over 400,000 morphine addicts.
The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.
The main active chemical in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). The membranes of certain nerve cells in the brain contain protein receptors that bind to THC. Once securely in place, THC kicks off a series of cellular reactions that ultimately lead to the high that users experience when they smoke marijuana
The major side effects from abusing anabolic steroids can include liver tumors and cancer, jaundice (yellowish pigmentation of skin, tissues, and body fluids), fluid retention, high blood pressure, increases in LDL (bad cholesterol), and decreases in HDL (good cholesterol). Other side effects include kidney tumors, severe acne, and trembling.
The rosy periwinkle plant, found in Madagascar, is used to cure leukemia.
Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including at least 50 that cause, initiate or promote cancer such as tar, ammonia, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and benzopyrene.
Traces of cocaine were found on 99% of UK bank notes in a survey in London in 2000.
There was this guy who was deeply depressed. One night, while he was drunk and depressed, he decided to commit suicide. He took some house cleaner and drank it. It immediatley ate the bottom of his throat and stomach. By the time he was rushed to the hospital, he had no stomach. Doctors had to connect his small intestines to his throat. Now, when he eats he has to push his food down his small intestines. He also has to eat every two or three hours, and go to the bathroom every two hours.
The British Medical Acupuncture Society is an anagram of Ouch, my sciatic hip... but needle art cures it!
Alternative medicine is that set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested or consistently fail tests (Richard Dawkins).
The country with the largest number of hospitals is China, with 67,807 (1995 figures). China is the only country in the world where Western medicine and traditional medicine are practised alongside each other at every level of the healthcare system. Traditional treatments include herbal remedies, acupuncture, acupressure and massage, and moxibustion (the burning of substances on the skin to remedy illness), and account for around 40% of all health care delivered in China.
Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in 1899, after Felix Hoffman, a German chemist at the drug company Bayer, successfully modified Salicylic Acid, a compound found in willow bark to produce Aspirin.
Bayer® Aspirin was the first drug ever to be marketed in tablet form. First marketed in 1899 as a powder, by 1900 aspirin was being compressed into a water-soluble tablet.
Cocaine was the first local anesthetic; being used as such from about 1884 onwards.
Cocaine works in a totally different way from narcotics such as morphine or heroin. Heroin works on receptor sites in the brain which are stimulated by the drug to produce pain-relieving and mood-enhancing chemicals. Cocaine on the other hand works by stimulating the central nervous system, and like alcohol, is processed through the liver.
'Crack' is the street name given to cocaine that has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a free base for smoking. Rather than requiring the more volatile method of processing cocaine using ether, crack cocaine is processed with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water and heated to remove the hydrochloride, thus producing a form of cocaine that can be smoked. The term 'crack' refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked (heated), presumably from the sodium bicarbonate. 'Crack Cocaine' is still cocaine. It is simply a different chemical process applied to cocaine powder that allows cocaine to be smokeable. This means that the 'high' from Crack Cocaine is much stronger and more immediate (taking about 8 seconds to reach the brain); and also shorter lived then from the powder.
Despite the fact that federal spending on the drug war increased from $1.65 billion in 1982 to $17.7 billion in 1999, more than half of the students in the United States in 1999 tried an illegal drug before they graduated from high school. Additionally, 65% have tried cigarettes by 12th grade and 35% are current smokers, and 62% of twelfth graders and 25% of 8th graders in 1999 report having been drunk at least once.
Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seedpod of the Asian poppy plant. Heroin usually appears as a white or brown powder. Street names for heroin include "smack," "H," "skag," and "junk." Other names may refer to types of heroin produced in a specific geographical area, such as "Mexican black tar."
In an article in 1998, The Journal of the American Medical Association claimed that adverse drug reactions may cause more than 100,000 deaths a year in the US alone.
In the US, Delaware, Virginia and Michigan rank as the top three states for Ritalin use, and most of the prescriptions are for elementary and middle school age children. Doctors in these states prescribe at least 33 grams for every 1,000 residents, 56 percent more than the national average, according to figures compiled by the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
Recent examinations of Ötzi, a 5000 year old mummy found in the Alps, have located over fifty tattoos on Ötzi's body, some of which are located on acupuncture points that would today be used to treat ailments Ötzi suffered from. Some scientists believe that this is evidence that practices similar to acupuncture were practiced elsewhere in Eurasia during the early bronze age.
The anti-malarial drug quinine is taken from the bark of the Andean cinchona tree.
The average cup of coffee contains more than 1000 different chemical components, none of which is tasted in isolation but only as part of the overall flavor.
The chemical n-acetyl-cysteine found in raw eggs is proven to help hangovers.
