Hug Your Cat Day / National Hospital Week

Hug Your Cat Day

May 12

While it is commonly thought that the ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate cats, the oldest known pet cat was recently found in a 9,500-year-old grave on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This grave predates early Egyptian art depicting cats by 4,000 years or more. The Ancient Egyptians were the first to keep and use cats to control vermin and other pests to protect stores of food. In Ancient Egypt, the cat was revered as a hunter and worshiped as gods and goddesses. The domestic cat is thought to have evolved from the African wild cat because of its tabby markings. There are more than 500 million domestic cats in the world, with approximately 40 recognized breeds. Cats are North America’s most popular pets: there are 73 million cats compared to 63 million dogs. Over 30% of households in North America own a cat.

National Hospital Week

May’s Second Week

The history of hospitals has stretched over 2500 years, starting with precursors in the Ascelpian temples in ancient Greece and then the military hospitals in ancient Rome, though no civilian hospital existed in the Roman empire until the Christian period. There are 5,724 hospitals in the U.S., according to the American Hospital Association. Of these, 2,903 hospitals are nonprofit and 1,025 are for-profit. Additionally, 1,045 are owned by state or local (county, hospital district) government entities. Of all hospitals in the U.S., 1,984, or 35 percent, serve rural communities and are considered rural hospitals. Not including statistics from the Coronavirus pandemic, the average length of stay for an acute-care hospital admission is 4.8 days. The average cost per inpatient day is $2,025 for nonprofit hospitals and $1,629 for for-profit hospitals.

Today’s Birthdays of Note….

Katharine Hepburn – Actress – born in Hartford, Connecticut

Florence Nightingale – Founder of Modern Nursing – born in Florence, Italy

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