National Nurse Week
May 6 – May 12
About 100 B.C.E. the Charaka Samhita was written in India, stating that good medical practice requires a patient, physician, nurse, and medicines, with the nurse required to be knowledgeable, skilled at preparing formulations and dosage, sympathetic towards everyone, and clean. From its earliest days, following the edicts of Jesus, Christianity encouraged its devotees to tend the sick. The first known Christian nurse, Phoebe, is mentioned in Romans 16:1. During the early years of the Christian Church (ca. 50 C.E.), St. Paul sent a deaconess named Phoebe to Rome as the first visiting nurse. The American Medical Association reports that there is a ratio of 10 nurses to 3 physicians, or approximately 3 million nurses.
National Golf Day
May 6
While Scotland is credited with being the birthplace of golf, similar games were played much earlier. According to GolfNow.com, feather-stuffed balls were hit with branches as early as the time of Julius Caesar. The Dutch played a golf game of sorts on their frozen canals, as documented by book illustrations as early as the 1400s. The game was more like ice hockey and was played with sticks and a ball. It was called “kolven.” Later kolven became “kolf”, and then “gawf” in Britain. America’s first 18-hole golf course was constructed on a sheep farm in Downer’s Grove, Illinois in 1892. Businessman and golf lover Charles Blair McDonald moved to this quaint town and began constructing the course with his colleagues. The Downer’s Grove Golf Course is still intact after all these years, although it’s since been downsized to 9 holes.
Today’s Birthdays of Note….
George Clooney – Actor – born in the Lexington, Kentucky
Sigmund Freud – founder of psychoanalysis – born in Freiberg, Austria
