Note: this topic is from 8/01/2015. Thanks Talisker.
Posted on 08/01/2015 5:39:54 PM PDT by Talisker
As the sun went down after the 1862 Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War, some soldiers noticed that their wounds were glowing a faint blue. Many men waited on the rainy, muddy Tennessee battlefield for two days that April, until medics could treat them. Once they were taken to field hospitals, the troops with glowing wounds were more likely to survive their injuries — and to get better faster. Thus the mysterious blue light was dubbed “Angel’s Glow.”
In 2001, 17-year-old Civil War buff Bill Martin visited the Shiloh battlefield with his family and heard the legend of Angel’s Glow. His mom, Phyllis, happened to be a microbiologist who studied a soil bacterium called Photorhabdus luminescens or P. luminescens — which is bioluminescent, meaning it gives off its own light. In fact, it gave off a light that was pale blue in color.
Bill and his friend Jonathan Curtis wondered if this organism could be the source of Angel’s Glow. Bill’s mom encouraged them to try to find out.
The boys learned that P. luminescens live inside nematodes, tiny parasitic worms that burrow into insect larvae in the soil or on plants. Once rooted in the larvae, the nematodes vomit up the bacteria, which release chemicals that kill the host larvae and any other microorganisms living inside them.
Bill and Jonathan were slightly stumped to find out that P. luminescens can’t survive at normal human body temperature. But they figured out that sitting on the cold, wet ground for two days had lowered the wounded soldiers’ body temperature. So when the nematodes from the muddy soil got into the wounds, the bacteria had the right environment to thrive — and to save the men’s lives by cleaning out other, more dangerous germs.
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There really aren’t all that many hills in Shiloh. It’s in West Tennessee; and it’s mostly flat as a flitter down there. Middle Tennessee is pretty hilly. East Tennessee has a lot of mountainous area. - We once stayed at a place called Blevis’s (I think that was the name) Boatel. I reckon it was actually an old riverboat. Of course, my memory isn’t what it used to be.
A feisty lady from NC, known as Aunt Abby, tried to improve conditions in Confederate hospitals.
I read a magazine article about her a few years ago. President Davis and General Lee dreaded her visits, but the men she nursed adored her.
Her fiancé had died during the War of 1812 and from that memory she wanted the soldiers fighting for the Confederacy to have better care.
http://ncpedia.org/biography/house-abby
Talisker is a favorite around here.
L
Classy place, then! LOL!
A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Harley motorcycle when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop.
The surgeon was there, waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his bike.
The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey, Doc, can I ask you a question?"
The surgeon a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take the valves out, fix 'em, put 'em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?"
The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic... "Try doing it with the engine running."
Note: this topic is from 8/01/2015. Thanks Talisker.
I heard a story that in the South, during the Civil War, there was a shortage of silk for sutures, so they used hair from horses tails. The hair was stiff, so to make it more flexible they boiled it. Then they noticed that the soldiers with boiled horse-hair sutures suffered from infections at a much lower rate than patients with silk sutures. That's the way I heard it anyway...
Boiling killed the germs, eh?
Wow. Very interesting.
I believe it’s true that even our battle against bacteria pales in comparison to the actual war going on at the microbiotic level.
So no matter how many times they lament “We’re running out of antibiotics...” well they have only looked at 1/2 of 1/10 of one percent of the possibilities!
Emergency Medical techniques and treatment grew by leaps and bounds during the Civil War, due to doctors having to learn from earnest mistakes. Same thing with WW I. A sad truth.
I used to wonder about all the fuss over single malt whiskey, so a few years ago I went to an upwardly mobile liquor store and picked up a bottle to sample. I don’t recall the label, but it was in the $60 range. The store owner claimed that it was the best moderately priced scotch he had.
I must note here that I do not drink at all.
Well, I did try the single malt. On three different days, over a two week period, just to be fair.
My conclusion was that it tasted like turpentine, and was only good for antiseptic.
No offense intended.
I recommend you stay away from it.
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