History of Medicine : The Stethoscope

In the early 1800s, doctors began to listen to patients' chests to diagnose diseases of the heart and lungs. At first, the physician put his ear to the patient's chest. One day when examining a young lady under the watchful eye of her family, René Laënnec was embarrassed to place his head right next to her breast. Instead, he listened through a rolled up a piece of paper, and found he could hear much more clearly than without it--thus the stethoscope was invented.

Laënnec, A l'Hopital Necker, Ausculte Un Phtisique (Laënnec, at the Hopital Necker, Examining a Consumptive Patient by Auscultation)
Théobald Chartran (1849­-1907)


Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Laennec

Propaganda Techniques to Recognize

         Common media for transmitting propaganda messages include news reports, government reports, historical revision, junk science, books, leaflets, movies, radio, television, and posters. Less common nowadays are letter-post envelopes examples of which of survive from the time of the American Civil War. (Connecticut Historical Society; Civil War Collections; Covers.) In principle any thing that appears on a poster can be produced on a reduced scale on a pocket-style envelope with corresponding proportions to the poster.

          The case of radio and television, propaganda can exist on news, current-affairs or talk-show segments, as advertising or public-service announce "spots" or as long-running advertorials. Propaganda campaigns often follow a strategic transmission pattern to indoctrinate the target group. This may begin with a simple transmission such as a leaflet dropped from a plane or an advertisement. Generally these messages will contain directions on how to obtain more information, via a web site, hot line, radio program, et cetera (as it is seen also for selling purposes among other goals). The strategy intends to initiate the individual from information recipient to information seeker through reinforcement, and then from information seeker to opinion leader through indoctrination.

A number of techniques based in social psychological research are used to generate propaganda. Many of these same techniques can be found under logical fallacies, since propagandists use arguments that, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid.

        Some time has been spent analyzing the means by which the propaganda messages are transmitted. That work is important but it is clear that information dissemination strategies become propaganda strategies only when coupled with propagandistic messages. Identifying these messages is a necessary prerequisite to study the methods by which those messages are spread. Below are a number of techniques for generating propaganda:

1. NAME CALLING or STEREOTYPING:  Giving a person or an idea a bad label by using an easy to remember pejorative name.  This is used to make us reject and condemn a person or idea without examining what the label really means.  Examples: "Republican", "Tree-Hugger", "Nazi", "Environmentalist", "Special-Interest Group".

 

2. VIRTUE WORDS or GLITTERING GENERALITY: These words are used to dupe us into accepting and approving of things without examining the evidence carefully.  Examples: "Natural", "Democratic", "Organic", "Scientific", "Ecological", "Sustainable".

OCTOBER 2010 International holidays and observances

              October is the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old Roman calendar, October retained its name (from the Latin "octo" meaning "eight") after July and August, after Julius and Augustus Caesar respectively, when the calendar was originally created by the Romans.
October is commonly associated with the season of autumn in the Northern hemisphere and spring in the Southern hemisphere, where it is the seasonal equivalent to April in the Northern hemisphere and vice versa.
 October Symbols

• October's birthstone is the opal. The opal is thought to have the power to predict illness. This is because the opal responds to heat. Sickness increases body temperature before signs of illness appear. The increased body heat causes the opal to lose its shine, leaving it dull and lacking color. It is also said that the opal will crack if it is worn by someone who was not born in October.
• Its birth flower is the calendula. 

The Zodiac sign for those born in this month is either Libra or Scorpio, depending on which day you were born.

Ocber International  Observance:

• First Monday of October - World Habitat Day, recognized by the UN

• October 1 - International Day of Older Persons, recognized by the UN

• October 1 - World Vegetarian Day

• October 2 - International Day of Non-Violence, recognized by the UN, observed on M.K. Gandhi's birthday 

Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism,
considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.

International holidays and observances -September 2010

• Birthstone: Sapphire
• Flower: Aster
• Astrological Signs: Virgo: August 23 - September 22, Libra: September 23 - October 22

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6 Labor Day *	7	8	9 Jewish Rosh Hashanah/ Feast of Trumpets (starts on the eve before)	10 Islamic Eid ul-Fitr	11 Patriot Day
12 Grandparents Day	13	14	15	16 Stepfamily Day	17 Constitution Day and Week	18 Jewish Yom Kippur
19	20	21 International Day of Peace	22	23 First Day of AutumnJewish Sukkot	24 Native American Day	25
26 Gold Star Mother's Day	27	28	29	30

• 1: Constitution Day (Slovakia)
• 1: Independence Day (Uzbekistan)
• 2: Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism)
• 2: National Day (Vietnam)
• 2: Democracy Day (Tibet)