A Poem to Remember

A regular weekly weekend visit to the IIWC (Indian Institute of World Culture) Library on B.P.Wadia,Basavanagudi made me to give a second look at the librarian's wooden coloured, 60s, mammoth wooden desk which held freshly arrived stack of the monthly bulletins on it.These bulletins once used to come home by post for IIWC members,but now Cost Cutting :) They have to be hand picked from the library.
Morphologically speaking,this bulletin is an A5 sized 8 paged booklet containing mainly the event schedule for that particular month for the audi below the library. But thats not all what it contains.It also has some Blah blah stuff.But the entity of my particular interest are the cover pages which make some interesting read. This volume's front side cover page had P.B.Shelly's beautiful poem which I really like and which insisted me to blog this blog ,... And this is what I like ....

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single,

All things by a law divine

In one another's being mingle,

-Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdain'd its brother:

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea -

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?
-Percy B.Shelley

Wow, Isn't it pretty cool?
But YES,...Who should I recite this poem to (In person)? ...!!!

Bacteria or Virus ?

It was 10 past 10 on a rainy Sunday night, I wasn't feeling comfortable about my self-medication wherein I was on Antibiotics and Paracetamol for past 1 and a half days. So I decided to call my (Doctor) friend who had finished his medical exams and was on his 1 year Internship,but was afraid to do so fearing he might have had a night duty or attending a patient in an OT because I recalled one of my friends saying that his friend who was also an intern in the same college was in ICU yesterday for 4 hrs. I never faced this type of situation in making a call to my friend prior to this month, as he was a normal MBBS student before but now he is almost a doctor literally.

But soon I came out with a solution for this dilemma and I decided to call him.The funda was to give a ring which sounded(may be lasted) more than a Miss Call and at the same time never give him a chance to pick up the call; so that if he is busy he would not answer the call back and if not he wouldn't mind giving a miss call back.This worked out and I received a call after some 10 mins but as I was guessing he was in OT working in Night Shift.So I started to clarify my doubts about what I had done in last 2 days.

After a couple of handshaking signals and acknowledgments (ಉಭಯಕುಶಲೋಪರಿ) I came to the point.I started to speak in general about Viral fever and Bacterial fever. He explained my first question "Diff b/w Viral and Bacterial Fever" beautifully which made my prejudiced thoughts more clear.Yes I have some knowledge about Viral and Bacteria fever and some problems caused by worms and parasites so it wasn't difficult for me to digest his Medico-English lines.

Viral fevers/infections are caused by viruses and the medicine for curing viral diseases is still in its research stage.Surprised?? Its true. No medicine till date can prevent/cure virus linked diseases coz of the unpredictable nature of these viruses. Once the drug to combat virus is invented even AIDS can be cured :) But Bacterial diseases/fever/disorders can be 'Rx'ed :)

So I asked him what if I go to a doctor and say I am sick and I have fever with cold from past 24 hrs, How does he know whether it's a viral or bacterial fever?" his acceptable answer "Even the doctor can't judge that, so he prescribes a paracetamol along with an Anti Bacterial drug( popularly known as an Anti Biotic) .This is because of the below two cases:

1) If it's a bacterial fever then it's cent percent sure that the antibiotic attacks bacteria and the illness is cured
2) If it's a viral fever then though antibiotics have no affect on viruses they(antibiotics) prevent the further infection of new bacteria as a patient suffering from viral fever is more susceptible to attract harmful bacteria.

Finally I got to know the Ram BaNa (ರಾಮ್ ಬಾಣ) of Doctors' prescription.
Overall the discussion with him made me proud about myself of having a doctor friend and yes about the ViroBacteria too ;)