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Post by Bonobo on Sept 19, 2008 11:24:56 GMT 1
Today, while driving to work, on the radio news they recalled the outbreak of a deadly disease in Wroc³aw 45 years ago. Smallpox or black death. The virus was brought to Wroc³aw from India. 99 people got infected, 7 died, 4 of them medical staff. The city was encircled with police posts and people couldn`t leave it. A change of customs took place - people stopped cordial kisses or handshakes. The city was paralysed for a few weeks. 400.000 inhabitants of Wroc³aw were vaccinated, and later 8 million people all over Poland. The communist authorities officially banned traditional pilgrimages to Czêstochowa in 1963. A film based on true story called Zaraza (Epidemics) was made in 1971. Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants named Variola major and Variola minor.[1] The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or varus, meaning "pimple". The term "smallpox" was first used in Europe in the 15th century to distinguish variola from the great pox (syphilis).[2]
Smallpox localizes in small blood vessels of the skin and in the mouth and throat. In the skin, this results in a characteristic maculopapular rash, and later, raised fluid-filled blisters. V. major produces a more serious disease and has an overall mortality rate of 30–35%. V. minor causes a milder form of disease (also known as alastrim, cottonpox, milkpox, whitepox, and Cuban itch) which kills ~1% of its victims.[3][4] Long-term complications of V. major infection include characteristic scars, commonly on the face, which occurred in 65–85% of survivors.[5] Blindness resulting from corneal ulceration and scarring, and limb deformities due to arthritis and osteomyelitis are less common complications, seen in about 2–5% of cases.
Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC.[2] The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness.[3] Between 20 and 60% of all those infected—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease.[6]
During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.[7][8] As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year.[9] After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in 1979.[9] To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated.[10]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox |
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 21, 2008 15:37:45 GMT 1
 thenews.pl 21.12.2008
On December 21, 1898, Polish born Marie Curie and her French husband Pierre isolated a new element, radium, in their pioneering work on radioactivity.
The couple were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their discoveries in 1903. Maria - the first woman ever to win a Nobel prize, would won a second award, this time in Chemistry in 1911, the only scientist ever to win two laureates in two different disciplines.
Maria Sklodowska was born in Russian controlled Warsaw in 1867. As a woman she was not allowed to attend Warsaw university but studied in the many, illegal, floating universities at the time where she developed a deep passion and understanding for physics.
She moved to France when she was 24 years old where she met her future husband.
Maria died in 1934 of radiation poisoning. |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 14, 2009 21:18:40 GMT 1
No to DNA tests on Chopin's heart
thenews.pl
25.02.2009
Poland's culture minister, Bogdan Zdrojewski, has upheld his decision not to allow DNA tests on the heart of Fryderyk Chopin to determine the exact cause of his death (photo: galeria - polskie radio).
A group of geneticists who hypothesise that Chopin could have died from a hereditary disease, cystic fibrosis - and not tuberculosis as has been previously supposed - asked for permission and funds to carry out the tests in April 2008. Last September the minister turned down the application.
The researchers continued their efforts, however, and kept lobbying to be allowed to examine his remains.
Chopin moved to Paris in 1831 and died in 1849 after a long illness. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery but his heart was brought to the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, in line with his wishes.
Announcing his final decision, the minister cited the negative opinion of the composer's living relatives as a reason for leaving the composer in peace. Zdrojewski said the cause of the exiled composer's death - with tongue firmly in cheek - as being from a broken heart: `He died from his love for his homeland'.
Professor Tadeusz Dobosz from the Medical Academy in Wroclaw argues that far more important than the studies into the causes of Chopin's death is saving the composer's heart, which is interred in a pillar in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. `For over fifty years nobody has examined the urn in which the heart is placed. If the heart is not preserved properly, it may fall into pieces or dry out', the professor says.
DNA tests were cecently carried out on remains found in Torun, northern Poland, to ascertain whether or not they were of Poland`s most famous astronomer, Copernicus.
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Post by Bonobo on Jun 7, 2009 21:19:51 GMT 1
They said in Russia that Stalin was an illegitimate son of a famous explorer of Polish origin, Przewalski. An unconfirmed rumour circulatuing for ages is that Russified Polish explorer Przewalski sired an illegitimate son with the Georgian washerwoman who gave birth to the future Stalin! I once talked about it with a Russian expert, justawoman, and she said it is nonsense. Besides, Przewalski had a POlish name but was Russian in heart. But they both did look alike: Przewalski  Stalin  |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 24, 2010 10:33:34 GMT 1
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 2, 2010 0:39:40 GMT 1
In the other Polish forum I read a discussion which mentioned hair in old Poland. I recalled the so called kołtun polski. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plait
Polish plait (Plica polonica in Latin) is a formation of hair. It can be viewed as a hairstyle similar to dreadlocks or a hair disease.
As a disease
The Polish plait usually results from deficient hair care. Uncombed hair becomes irreversibly entangled, forming a matted, malodorous and encrusted or sticky moist mass. It may be caused by or accompanied with lice infestation (pediculosis) and lead to inflammation of the scalp. The Polish plait is typically a (sometimes large) head of hair, made of a hard impenetrable mass of keratin fibers permanently cemented together with dried pus, blood, old lice egg-casings and dirt. The disease may be easily prevented by standard hygienic practices, such as washing and combing of the hair. Treatment involves cutting the affected hair.
The Polish plait was quite common in past centuries when hair care was largely neglected. It affected mostly the peasantry, but was not unusual among higher social classes. The most notable person in history said to be afflicted with it was King Christian IV of Denmark (1577–1648). His plait had the form of a pigtail hanging from the left side of his head, adorned with a red ribbon. His courtiers were said to have adopted the hairstyle in order to flatter the king.
Due to superstitious beliefs, the Polish plait used to be particularly common in Poland, hence its English and Latin name. Similarly, in German it is called Weichselzopf, or Vistula plait, after a river in Poland. Initially, the plait was treated as an amulet, supposed to bring good health. For this reason people not only allowed it to develop, but even encouraged it. Spreading fat on their hair and wearing wooly caps even in summer were common practices.
In the early 17th century people began to believe plaits were an external symptom of an internal illness. A growing plait was supposed to take the illness "out" of the body, and therefore it was rarely cut off; in addition, the belief that a cut-off plait could avenge itself and bring an even greater illness discouraged some from attacking it. It was also believed that casting a magic spell on someone could cause that person to develop a Polish plait, hence also the name "elflock" was used in English.
These convictions were so widespread and strong that many people lived their whole lives with a Polish plait. A plait could sometimes grow very long – even up to 80 cm. Polish plaits could take various forms, from a ball of hair to a long tail. Plaits were even categorized in a quite sophisticated way; there were plaits "male" and "female", "inner" and "outer", "noble" and "fake", "proper" and "parasitical".
A British diarist and Samuel Johnson's friend, Hester Thrale, in her book Observations and reflections made in the course of a journey through France, Italy, and Germany, describes a Polish plait she saw in 1786 in the collection of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden: "the size and weight of it was enormous, its length four yards and a half [about 4.1 m]; the person who was killed by its growth was a Polish lady of quality well known in King Augustus's court."
In the second half of the 19th century some intellectuals waged a war against superstition and lack of hygiene among the peasantry. Many plaits, often to the horror of their owners, were cut off. In Western Galicia, it was Professor Józef Dietl who made a particular effort to examine and treat Polish plaits. He organized an official census of people suffering from the disease, which spawned rumors that plaits would be taxed. Those rumors were said to have helped eradicate the Polish plait in the region. A huge, 1.5-meter long, preserved Polish plait can be seen in the History of Medicine Museum in Kraków (photo). The Polish word for the Polish plait, kołtun, is now used figuratively in Poland to denote an uneducated person with an old-fashioned mindset.
The only one in the world in Krakow`s museum   |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 26, 2013 13:09:34 GMT 1
Legend has it that soldiers of the Polish-Habsburg army, while liberating Vienna from the second Turkish siege in 1683, found a number of sacks with strange beans that they initially thought were camel feed and wanted to burn. The Polish king Jan III Sobieski granted the sacks to one of his officers named Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, who started the first coffee house. After some experimentation, he added some sugar and milk, and the Viennese coffee tradition was born. This achievement has been recognized in many modern Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window.[5] Another account is that Kulczycki, having spent two years in Ottoman captivity, knew perfectly well what coffee really is and tricked his superiors into granting him the beans that were considered worthless Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki (actually Kolczycki or Kólczycki, ca. 1640–1694), a translator of Turkish and dragoman* of Eastern Trade Company, made his name in the Polish and Austrian history almost simultaneously as the heroic messenger from Vienna besieged in 1683 and the founder of the first café in the city. Period sources reveal that Kulczycki considered himself “a native Pole” from “the royal Polish free city of Sambor”. He probably came from the Polonized Roman Catholic line of the originally Russian Kólczycki family from Kulczyce village near Sambor, very likely the noble part of the family bearing the Lis [Fox] coat of arms.     |
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