Provenance
It is blog that spotlights great discoveries and inventions and the lives of great men.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Gandhi -The Father of the Nation
Gandhi was neither a discoverer or an inventor but, in my opinion, he was the re-discoverer of Modern india. He infact pioneered growth of our country.
MOHANDAS Karamchand Gandhi (known as Mahatma or "Great-souled" Gandhi) is noted as one of the strongest symbols of non-violence in the 20th Century.
He was a thinker, a philosopher, an astute statesman and a man of action. His thoughts and words remain remarkably fresh and relevant to a new generation driven to cynicism and despair by the chaos and utter immorality that marks contemporary politics.
Mahatma Gandhi was unquestionably a great man, both in personal force and in political effect. He moulded the character of the struggle for freedom in India, and impressed his own ideals upon the new governing class that came into power when the English went home. There is, at the present day, a general awakening throughout Asia, but the spirit and policy of India, thanks largely to Gandhi, remains very different from that of any other Asiatic country.
Gandhi, like some other great men, developed slowly: Quite extraordinary psychological acumen would have been necessary to discern his future in the shy youth who studied law, first in India and then in England. His autobiography contains a picture of him as he was in his early days in England, and there is nothing in it to suggest the future loincloth; on the contrary, his costume is faultlessly correct and would pass inspection by the "Tailor and Cutter" without any criticism.
Albert Einstein's famous tribute to him that "generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this in flesh and blood ever walked upon this earth" does not seem extravagant.
Useful links:-
http://www.indianchild.com/mahatma_gandhi.htm -To read biography of Mahatma gandhi
http://web.mahatma.org.in/ - The Official Mahatma Gandhi eArchive & Reference Library
http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/ -A Collection of the views, ideals, life and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in multiplemedia.
http://web.mahatma.org.in/books/showbook.jsp?book=bg0001&link=bg&id=1&lang=en&cat=books - The electronic version of Mahatma's Autobiography
Monday, September 26, 2005
My Wish
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Pioneer in Heart Surgery
Today is World Heart Day. Till the most recent history, the human heart was too delicate organ to operate on. It might have continued so till date, were it not for World War II.
One of the first surgeons to gain access to the heart was Dr. Dwight Harken, a young U.S. Army surgeon. Many of Harken's patients were young soldiers evacuated from the European front with shell fragments and bullets lodged inside their hearts. To leave the shrapnel in was dangerous, but removing it was almost surely fatal. Harken began operating on animals, trying to develop a technique that would allow him to cut into the wall of a still beating heart, insert a finger, locate the shrapnel and remove it. All of his first 14 animals subjects died. Of the second group of 14, half died. Of the third group of 14, only 2 died. Harken felt ready to try the technique on humans. All of his patients survived, proving that the human heart could be operated upon.
It wasn't long before surgeons began wondering if Harken's technique might be applied to defective heart valves. In 1948, within days of each other, Harken and a Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. Charles Bailey, independently reported on a daring procedure to correct mitral stenosis: a condition where the mitral valve is narrowed and won't open properly. Just as with the soldiers, a small hole was cut in the side of a beating heart and a finger was inserted to find and very carefully widen the narrowed valve. Early results were disastrous, with the majority of patients dying. Gradually, though, surgeons improved their technique and the procedure became quite safe. This kind of blind surgery - or closed heart surgery - spread to hospitals around the world.
Longfellow Qoute
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing,leave, behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time."
- Longfellow
I am always concerned about the great discoveries and the invention in the world. Scientific development over the centuries has been a veritable saga of human failures and successes -successes built upon failures-and the triumph of the human spirit. There is no doubt that one can draw immense inspiration from the lives of great discoverers and make one own's life sublime, but whether one can leave behind his own footprints on the sands of time, while departing, may best be left to time alone to decide. We should view the lives -lives of dedication and sacrifice- of great discoveres and inventors with reverence that they do deserve, and must not forget the poet longfellow's lines quoted above.






