30 March - World Idli Day and its history

 

Idli or idly is a type of savoury rice cake, originating from South India, popular as a breakfast food in Southern India and in Sri Lanka. The cakes are made by steaming a batter consisting of fermented black lentils (de-husked) and rice. The fermentation process breaks down the starches so that they are more readily metabolised by the body.

The formation of World Idli Day is a fascinating tale in itself. The 30th of March was designated as World Idli Day in 2015. It was the inspiration for Eniyavan, the owner of a popular restaurant in Chennai, India, that only serves idlis. In honour of the event, he prepared a whopping 1,328 unique idli recipes. Not only this, but Eniyavan has also cooked gigantic idli weighing as heavy as 44 kg. It was sliced by a government official. That is how this day was born.

As you relish a supple and piping hot idli today, i.e., World Idli Day, don't forget the legacy it carries for thousands of years. It has travelled far and wide and comes in every size, shape, colour and with equally interesting parings of sambar and chutneys.Idli is one of the most nutritious food and there several reasons to feast on them on World Idli Day. May idli shine bright forever!

30 march - USA celebrates National Doctors' Day

 

National Doctors' Day is a day celebrated to recognize the contributions of physicians to individual lives and communities. The date varies from nation to nation depending on the event of commemoration used to mark the day. In some nations the day is marked as a holiday. Although supposed to be celebrated by patients in and benefactors of the healthcare industry, it is usually celebrated by health care organizations. Staff may organize a lunch for doctors to present the physicians with tokens of recognition. Historically, a card or red carnation may be sent to physicians and their spouses, along with a flower being placed on the graves of deceased physicians.

In the United States, National Doctors' Day is a day on which the service of physicians to the nation is recognized annually. The idea came from Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond, and the date chosen was the anniversary of the first use of general anesthesia in surgery. On March 30, 1842, in Jefferson, Georgia, Dr. Crawford Long used ether to anesthetize a patient, James Venable, and painlessly excised a tumor from his neck.

30 March - Philip Showalter Hench death anniversary

 

Philip Showalter Hench (February 28, 1896 – March 30, 1965) was an American physician. Hench, along with his Mayo Clinic co-worker Edward Calvin Kendall and Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The Nobel Committee bestowed the award for the trio's "discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects."

Hench received his undergraduate education at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and received his medical training at the United States Army Medical Corps and the University of Pittsburgh. He began working at Mayo Clinic in 1923, later serving as the head of the Department of Rheumatology. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Hench received many other awards and honors throughout his career. He also had a lifelong interest in the history and discovery of yellow fever.

Hench died of pneumonia while on vacation in Ocho Rios, Jamaica in 1965.

30 March - Ether was first used as an anesthetic in 1842

 

Ether, known as "sweet vitriol" until 1730, was discovered in 1275 by a Spanish chemist named Raymundus Lullius. While ethyl ether was first created in a laboratory in 1540 by a German scientist named Valerius Cordus, it wasn't until 1841 that the anesthetic property of ether was put to work. After witnessing "ether frolics", public gatherings of those who would take ether for amusement, and noting the lack of pain felt by those getting injured at these events, Dr. Crawford W. Long returned from schooling in Pennsylvania to his hometown of Jefferson, Georgia. While it is believed Dr. Long used ether for minor operations in 1841, the first recorded use of ether as an anesthetic occurred on March 30, 1842, when Long used applied it in the removal of two tumors from the neck of James M. Venable. Venable felt no pain from the procedure and paid two dollars for the tumor extraction.

Four years later, on September 30, 1846, Dr. William Morton, a former dental partner of Dr. Horace Wells, who had advocated the use of nitrous oxide as an anesthetic, administered ether to remove a tooth of a patient in Boston. In October of the same year, Morton gave a public demonstration of ether's anesthetic property at Massachusetts General Hospital. With the procedure occurring with great success, Morton was later wrongly credited as the discoverer of ether's surgical use. The year following the successful demonstration, Sir James Young Simpson, a future pioneer in anesthesiology, introduced ether for use as an anesthetic for childbirth. Ether wouldn't suit him for such purposes for very long.

30 March - Rajasthan Statehood Day

 

March 30 is observed as Rajasthan Diwas or Rajasthan Statehood Day as the state was formed on on this day in 1949 when Rajputana was merged into the Dominion of India. Jaipur was declared the capital of the state as it was the largest city.

Britishers gave the name Rajputana. After the unification of different princely states, Rajasthan was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru on April 18, 1948.

Modern Rajasthan includes most of Rajputana, which comprises the erstwhile nineteen princely states, two chiefships, and the British district of Ajmer-Merwara. Jaisalmer, Marwar (Jodhpur), Bikaner, Mewar (Chittorgarh), Alwar, and Dhundhar (Jaipur) were some of the main Rajput princely states.