And ... the award for the ugliest & the fattest people goes to ... ( Body Beautiful-I )

Two press reports ( extracts) - without comment:

 

Report#1

 

Wed Nov 11, 2009, 

LONDON (Reuters) -  

• 
  
  Britons are among the ugliest people in the world, according to a dating website that says it only allows "beautiful people" to join.
• Fewer than one in eight British men and just three in 20 women who have applied to BeautifulPeople.com have been accepted...
• Existing members of the "elite dating site" rate how attractive potential members are over a 48 hour period, after applicants upload a recent photo and personal profile.

• Swedish men have proved the most successful, with 65 percent being accepted, while Norwegian women are considered the most beautiful with 76 percent accepted, the website said.
• The way that BeautifulPeople.com accepts new members is simple. A potential member applies with a photo and a brief profile. Over 48 hours, existing members of the opposite sex vote whether or not to admit them....
• Options are: "Yes definitely," "Hmm yes, O.K," "Hmm no, not really" and "No definitely not."
• The site was founded in 2002 in Denmark and went live across the globe last month. Since then, the site has rejected nearly 1.8 million people from 190 countries, admitting just 360,000 new members.

• "I would say Britain is stumbling because they don't spend as much time polishing up their appearance and they are letting themselves down on physical fitness," Beautiful People managing director Greg Hodge said. "Next to Brazilian and Scandinavian beauties, British people just aren't as toned or glamorous."
• Only the male Russian and Polish applicants fared worse than British men, although Russian women had a 44 percent acceptance rate. Polish women did not appear in the table.
• German applicants were slated for offering up unflattering photographs, which may have hindered their acceptance rates at 15 percent for men and 13 percent for women, the lowest rate in their category.
• "German men and women aren't faring well, but they are submitting stern images, they need to soften up," Hodge said
•  

Report#2

 

It's a big (fat)world  , after all.

By Laurie Cunningham — Special to GlobalPost

Updated: November 26, 2009

 CHICAGO — 

If you tend to pack on a few kilograms over the holidays, blame it on globalization. .... In countries around the world, waistlines are expanding so rapidly that health experts recently coined a term for the epidemic: globesity.

• The common fat-o-meter among nations is body mass index (BMI), a calculation based on a person’s height and weight.The World Health Organization defines “overweight” as an individual with a BMI of 25 or more and “obese” as someone with a BMI of 30 or higher.
• Today, one in three of the world’s adults is overweight and one in 10 is obese.
  

•  By 2015, WHO estimates the number of chubby adults will balloon to 2.3 billion — equal to the combined populations of China, Europe and the U.S.
• ...... In the past 50 years, more of us have started driving to work instead of walking, opening a box of mac ‘n cheese instead of cooking, pushing computer keys instead of plows and taking the elevator rather than the stairs.
• “The combination of these factors is driving obesity all over the world ......., what’s really alarming is that it’s not just the middle aged, it’s children and adolescents. That’s new.”
• In honor of Thanksgiving, a U.S. holiday dedicated to eating until we can’t breathe, we decided to take a look at the Top 10 Fattest Countries in the world, based on national health surveys WHO compiled between 2000 and 2008.

• Yes, it's a big world after all:        
• 1) American Samoa, 93.5 percent (of population that's overweight).  Since World War II, an explosion of obesity on the islands has corresponded with a rise in migration to the U.S., New Zealand, France and Australia. That began to change dietary habits as family members abroad introduced those back home to Western eating and sent money home, giving locals the means to buy more food.
• 2) Kiribati, 81.5 percent. Between 1964 and 2001, food imports to the least developed Pacific nations, such as Kiribati, which comprises 33 islands clustered around the equator, increased six-fold, ....leading to a huge influx in fatty food and processed meat, such as Spam and mutton flaps (fatty sheep scraps), often sold at lower prices than native food.
• 3) U.S., 66.7 percent . In the early 1960s, 24 percent of Americans were overweight.
  

• Today, two-thirds of Americans are too fat, and the numbers on the scale keep going up. Health experts attribute the rise to an over-production of oil, fat and sugar — the result of government farm subsidies started in the 1970s that made it much cheaper to manufacture products like high fructose corn syrup, a common ingredient in processed foods. 
• “The .. food companies seek new ways to market to the public. Obesity was collateral damage.”
  

• 4) Germany, 66.5 percent . When Germany found out that it was the fattest nation in Europe, health experts blamed the usual suspects: beer, fatty foods and lack of physical activity. ....... Germans are suffering from an easy availability of junk food and more sedentary jobs and lifestyles. As part of the government’s campaign to reduce obesity levels by 2020, it has launched programs to serve more fruits and vegetables in public schools.
• 5) Egypt, 66 percent. ...In the 1960s, Egypt produced enough food to feed its people a steady diet of red meat, poultry, lentils, maize and dairy products. But by the 1980s, the population had outgrown food production, leading to an increase in food imports that created poorer eating habits. Obesity among Egyptian women is particularly high, often attributed to cultural taboos on women exercising or playing sports.

• 6) Bosnia-Herzegovina, 62.9 percent.   Once considered a problem only in high-income countries, obesity is dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries like Bosnia-Herzegovina, where smoking, drinking and eating unhealthy foods spiked during the war that ravaged the country from 1992 to 1995. Those living just above the poverty line ...... are gaining weight the fastest, partly because of the tendency to fill up on cheap processed foods high in calories and low on nutritional value.

• 7) New Zealand, 62.7 percent.  In a study at the University of Otago, researchers found that how much time New Zealand children spend watching television is a better predictor of obesity than what they eat or how much they exercise. 
• The study found that 41 percent of the children who were overweight by age 26 were those who had watched the most TV. 
• Television is not the only reason New Zealanders are gaining weight, but it’s one modern development often cited for growing childhood obesity. 
• 8) Israel, 61.9 percent. In the past 30 years, the number of obese Israelis has tripled....... Like in most developed countries, flab is most prevalent among Israelis with less education, with Jewish women with college degrees having the lowest levels of obesity and Arab women with basic education having the highest.
• 9) Croatia, 61.4 percent.  Croatia, where cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death, is also a victim of the globalization of the food market, which tends to suppress traditional diets as cheaper processed foods from the U.S. and Europe flood store shelves.
• It’s no wonder that a Croatian charity announced in June that it had created the world’s largest pair of jeans — the size of six tennis courts — stitched together from 8,023 donated pairs of jeans.
•  
  
  

• 10) United Kingdom, 61 percent.  Last month, "The Observer" ... reported that the heaviest man in the world was not in the U.S., but a 48-year-old Brit living in low-incoming housing in Ipswich “eating takeaways and playing computer games.” His weight: 980 pounds ( or 445 kgs) . 

• British bellies are expanding for the same reasons as everywhere else. A recent survey, however, ranked (poorly)  in physical exercise, leading Health Secretary Andy Burnham to comment, "We're really in danger of being known as the best in the world for watching sport, but one of the worst for getting out there and doing it for ourselves."
•  

If you want to implement a personal change, take a plunge - NOW !

Transformation is never gradual, it is always at once!!
(Source: "Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing" – by Osho)
  
OSHO narrates a Jain story:

A man came home tired after the whole day’s work. … His wife was giving him a bath, and while pouring water on his body and cooling his tired limbs, she talked and she said, ”My brother has become a follower of Mahavira, and he is thinking to renounce the world.”

The man laughed and said, ”Thinking? – then he will never leave the world!” 

The wife felt hurt, because it was a question of HER brother. She said, ”What do you mean? And I have never seen you going to Mahavira or to Buddha or anybody, and you think you understand?

He is a great scholar and he understands what Mahavira says. And he meditates, worships, and he is a religious man. And you? I don’t see any religiousness in you. I have never seen you praying or meditating. And you have the courage and you dare to say such a thing – that he will never renounce?”

The man stood – he was naked, taking his bath – came out of the bath, went onto the street. The wife cried, ”Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

He said, ”I have renounced ( the world) .”

He never came back. This is the man – he understood. He never prepared for it; nobody ever knew about him that he was a religious man, but this quality... He reached to Mahavira, he surrendered himself, he became a naked fakir.

The wife came, weeping and crying. Even the wife’s brother came to convince him that ”There is no hurry. Look at me! I have been thinking for twenty years. And you are a madman – is this a way to renounce?”

The man said, ”I don’t bother, is there any other way? For twenty years you have been thinking, for twenty lives you will continue thinking. And whenever you renounce you will renounce this way, because this is the only way – at once!”

You see a thing clearly and it happens. The question is of clarity.

An immediate look into the nature of things, then there is no question of changing somewhere in the future.  

No one changes in the future – transformation is always here and now. This moment is the only moment something can happen. There is no other moment.

When in Rome, Sweden and Tokyo, if you translate a phrase from dictionary, wait and watch for a few seconds..... and then run for your life !!

Funny Translation Errors !

If you're reading this page, you may also be interested in Yahoo's  realtime machine translator at http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt

Apart from its numerous practical uses (for instance, translating the only page that met your search criteria, but which happened to be in Portuguese), the most entertaining use of it is to translate text to another language and back. For example, the following table shows the results of translating "the linguistic fun page", a pretty straightforward, idiom-free phase:

For today's post for my blog I tried to translate from English: Welcome to my blog , titled " post card from deepak" into different languages.

The results make me instantly happy :

• French: Bienvenue à mon blog, intitulé " ; carte postale de deepak" ;

• Spanish: Recepción a mi blog, titulado " postal del deepak"

• German: Willkommen zu meinem Blog, betitelt " Postkarte vom deepak"

• Portugese: Boa vinda a meu blogue, intitulado " cartão do deepak"

• Italian: Benvenuto al mio blog, nominato " cartolina da deepak"

However, but my joy can be short lived, because someone knowledgeable in that country and culture might find it either perfectly right or funny, insulting, vulgar and offensive! ( I therefore beg the pardon well in advance as I have made the point that I was trying to make) 

There are dozens of web pages but one (courtesy->http://www.ojohaven.com/fun/translation.funnies.html) is enough to mention today,

Please read on :

• 
  
  
  
  
  Chinese:
  
  
  
• The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, ko-kou-ko-le, which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth".
•  When translated into Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off".
•  In a Hong Kong supermarket: "For your convenience, we recommend courageous, efficient self-service". 

•  Outside a Hong Kong tailor's shop: "Ladies may have a fit upstairs".
•  In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: "Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists".
•  On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong: "Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life".
•  English:              
•  Here is an excerpt from an email i received from Robin A. Weinberg, robin.a.weinberg@ac.com:
• While I was reading the funny translation page I remembered a slogan I saw in Australia. Burger King is called Hungry Jack's down there and their slogan (at least when I visited - summer '93) is 'Resistance is Futile'.
• French:
•  Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts". In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.
•  Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno mag.
•  Excerpt from an email i received from Stephen and Max Furnell, FurnellS@dial.pipex.com:
• In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
•  Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.
•  In a Bed & Breakfast in France: The genuine antics in your room come from our family castle. Long life to it.
•  In a Bed & Breakfast in France: Please avoid coca watering, cream cleaning, wet towels wrapping, and ironing drying.
  

• Italian:
•  In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.
•  Instructions on a packet of convenience food from Italy: "Besmear a backing pan, previously buttered with a good tomato sauce, and, after, dispose the cannelloni, lightly distanced between them in a only couch.".
•  In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
•  Japanese:
•  The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty".
•  Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company ultimately changed its name.
•  A warning to motorists in Tokyo: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.".             

•  In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
•  In a Tokyo hotel: Is forbitten to steal hotel toweles please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read this notice.
•  In a Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.
•  In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
•  Diversion sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop - Drive Sideways.
•  English text on products made in Japan solely for Japanese consumers:
• Message printed on an eraser: "Mr. Friendly Quality Eraser. Mr. Friendly Arrived!! He always stay near you, and steals in your mind to lead you to a good situation.". On the bottom of the eraser is a further message: "We are ecologically minded. This package will self-destruct in Mother Earth.".
•  A range of products by a company called Cream Soda used to have the slogan: "Too fast to live, too young to happy".
•  Spanish:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go". After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.
  
  
  
• When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you". However, the company's mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant".
•  An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato".
•  Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken", got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of the owner with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused".
• In an Acapulco hotel a sign read "The manager has personally passed all the water served here".
•  The Mitsubishi four wheel drive marketed in Australia as the "Pajero" was the cause of great emabarassmentt in Spain where "Pajero" means is a foul word. 
• Other languages:
• Czechoslovakia: in a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages.
•  Denmark: in a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.
•  German/Austria: a sign in a hotel catering to skiers read "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension".

• On a Vienna hotel: In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter.
• German/Germany: in a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.
• A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: “It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.”
• Greek/Greece: in a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
•  Polish/Poland: on the menu of a Polish hotel: “Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.”
• Portuguese/Brazil: Ford had a problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang, bad word. Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.
• Romania: in a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
• Russian/Russia: on the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.
• In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
• A translated sentence from a Russian chess book: A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played.
• Serbia: in a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
• Sweden : In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.
• Switzerland: in a Swiss menu: "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for".
• In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today - no ice cream.
• Taiwan: the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead".
• Thailand: in a Bangkok dry-cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.
• In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
• Yugoslavia: a sign in a hotel read "The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. Turn to her straightaway.".
• Yugoslavia: in the Europa Hotel, in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, you will find this message on every door: "Guests should announce the abandonment of theirs rooms before 12 o'clock, emptying the room at the latest until 14 o'clock, for the use of the room before 5 at the arrival or after the 16 o'clock at the departure, will be billed as one night more.".
• Unknown (South Africa? France? Australia?): in a Rhodes tailor's shop: Order your summers suit. Because in big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

 PS ( According to a company spokeswoman the coca cola story is not entirely accurate. Although Coke has to endure this oft-told tale, it has also, as the spokeswoman confirmed, so far been able to maintain the same brand name all over the world. (While we’re on the subject, the “No Go” Chevy (GM) Nova story is also apparently myth.)

Now you may ask why all this funny stuff today? and also : is there a way out?

The answer is a translation agency service in London called  Today Translations!

It offers several special services, like on-line translation of the on-going telephonic talk and it has strength in about 160 different languages!


Their website boasts as below:

"We are  a technical and commercial translation company, based in the City of London, that understands your need for speed. That works to a fair price and respects your reputation. And that, through a global team of 2,600 linguists, can handle an astonishing two million-plus words translation per month.

It’s an extraordinary capacity. And, with repeat business running at 87%, quality and customer satisfaction are high, too. The aim is bulletproof translation delivered on time and on budget.

 

Read for example their advice under the heading: "Communication and behaviour - Egypt"

• show Since there are plenty greeting styles in Egypt, it is safest to wait for your counterpart to initiate the greeting, especially at a first meeting.

• Arab men usually walk hand in hand although Western-style Egyptians rarely do this. If an Egyptian holds your hand, accept this as gesture of friendship.
• The left hand is considered unclean in Egypt. Unless you are handling something considered dirty, always use the right hand. Avoid gestures with the left hand.
• Pointing is considered extremely rude.

• Do not cross their legs when sitting. Moreover, showing the bottom of your foot is considered offensive.
• The "thumbs up" sign is offensive in Egypt and the entire Arab world.Strict Muslims won't touch alcohol or pork. If you invite an Egyptian to a social event, make sure there is a selection of non-alcoholic drinks available.
• Don't 'wipe out' your plate. Leaving a small portion of food means you have had enough.

• When eating in an Egyptian home, adding salt to your food is considered an offence.
• Egyptian cotton, sports (football, boxing) and achievements of the past are popular conversation topics.
• Women (inquiring about female members of your counterpart's family) and Israel are topics to avoid.
• Presents are acceptable but make sure you give or receive them with the right hand and never with the left. Using both hands is acceptable.Small electronic devices, chocolates and fashionable compasses are popular gifts.

The firm was last week in news for a novel service, offering parents-to-be the chance to check the meaning of prospective baby names.

Read on ....

• A typical business day is usually from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm in the summer and 9:00 am to 1:00 pm with an extra 5:00 to 7:00 pm in the winter.
• No business is conducted on Friday, the Muslim holy day. Most people don't work on Thursdays either.
• Working hours for businesses and government offices are shortened during the Ramadan.
• Punctuality is not as much of a priority. Your counterpart may be late for the appointment or won't show up at all.
• Indeed, it is a common practice to keep foreign trade partners waiting. You may not be able to hold more than one appointment per day. Besides, Cairo is well known for its traffic congestion.
• Appointments with traditional Arab entrepreneurs are rarely private. Interruptions in the form of phone calls and visits from friends and family are to be expected. Remain calm and understanding.
• You should have an Egyptian agent to do business in this country. If you're doing business in both Cairo and Alexandria, it's recommended that you have a separate agent for each city.
• Business cards should be printed in English on one side and in Arabic overleaf.
• Business documents should include two dates: the Gregorian (Western) and the Hijrah (Arabic) date.
• Visitors are expected to follow Egyptian discretion standards. Despite the country's hot temperatures, most of the body must remain covered.
• Avoid wearing traditional clothing. Egyptians may find it offensive to see foreigners dressed in their traditional attire.
• The lewd gaze of an Egyptian man is usually a good indicator that a foreign woman's dress is not 'modest' enough.
• The pace of business is much slower in Egypt than in Europe or the States. Producing 'instant results' is out of question.
• Business will not proceed until your counterpart decides that he likes you. The social side of the deal goes hand in hand with the work-related one.

What's in a name? More than you might think

Tue Nov 17, 2009

LONDON (Reuters) - A London-based translation firm is offering parents-to-be the chance to check the meaning of prospective baby names in other languages to avoid inadvertently causing their offspring future embarrassment.

Celebrity couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes might have thought twice about naming their daughter Suri if they'd known that it means "pickpocket" in Japanese, "turned sour" in French, and "horse mackerels" in Italian, suggest Today Translations.

For 1,000 pounds ($1,678), the company's linguists will carry out a "basic name translation audit" of names, checking their meaning in 100 languages, or more for an additional cost.

While open to everyone, the firm said it expects the service is likely to attract celebrity clients, who are known for giving their babies unusual names.

Other celebrity baby names it has checked include Kai Rooney, the newborn son of English soccer player Wayne Rooney, whose name means "probably" in Finnish, "pier" in Estonian, and "stop it" in the west African language of Yoruba.

And while musicians Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale may have known Zuma meant "peace" in Arabic when choosing their son's name, they may not have been aware it also translates as "Lord frowns in anger" in the Aztec language of Nahuatl.

Some unusual celebrity baby name choices are beyond easy translation however, the company admits, such as Jermajesty -- the son of Michael Jackson's brother Jermaine.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Steve Addison)

In India, there are various dailects, languages and cultural variety. How nice would it be to have such a guide !!

Hippocrates, a solemn oath for doctors and for all of us.

Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 bc), greatest physician of antiquity, regarded as the father of medicine. He taught for money, was famous enough in his own lifetime to be mentioned by Plato and Aristotle, and died in Larissa, Greece; little else is known about him.

Hippocratic Oath

The Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest binding documents in history.  

Written in antiquity, its principles are held sacred by doctors to this day: treat the sick to the best of one's ability, preserve patient privacy, and teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation, and so on.

"The Oath of Hippocrates," holds the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics (1996 edition), "has remained in Western civilization as an expression of ideal conduct for the physician."

Today, most graduating medical-school students swear to some form of the oath, usually a modernized version. Indeed, oath-taking in recent decades has risen to near uniformity, from just 24 percent of U.S. medical schools administering the oath in 1928 to nearly 100 percent today.

"The original oath is redolent of a covenant, a solemn and binding treaty," writes Dr. David Graham in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association (12/13/00). "By contrast, many modern oaths have a bland, generalized air of 'best wishes' about them, being near-meaningless formalities devoid of any influence on how medicine is truly practiced."

 

The Hippocratic Oath:

(one of the modified modern versions)

• I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
• I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
• I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.
• I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
• I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
• I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
• I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
• I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
• I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
• If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

When Hippocrates  was nearing the end of his life,  his mind turned to young men who had come to study medicine under him in recent years. They certainly were ambitious, serious minded and well-intentioned people, but what about values , ideals and principles? What about sterling  character  and high personal integrity, so vital in their chosen  profession?

He had written  more than 60 books  about the science of medicine and its practice. Yet,  there was one thing he must write : an oath of integrity, a code of standards and ideals to which the physicians would swear  to adhere. In the practice of their profession,.

He would ask all physicians , now and forever,  to live upright and honest lives,  to be loyal and devoted in the care of their patients, to be generous, just and kind. He would ask all physicians to take this oath.

Written more than 20 centuries ago, the Hippocratic  Oath has inspired generations of doctors.  Thousands of physicians have framed copies on their walls along with their degrees.

Though it was written specifically for physicians, the Oath  sets an enduring pattern of honour, integrity and devotion to duty for all people, in all professions.

The most honourable and ever adamant Socrates is reputed for his golden words: “Acquit me, or do not acquit me; but be sure that I shall not alter my way of life, no, not if I have to die for it many times.”

Ulysses Grant said: “No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.”

William Shakespeare wrote these famously beautiful lines:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls;

Who steals my purse steals trash;  ‘tis something,

nothing;

‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to

thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

This reminds one  what renowned modern Gujarati thinker Gunvant Shah wrote  in “Asitva No Utsav- Ishavasyam ” (अस्तित्व नो उत्सव)  about offices where public dealing takes place:

In our ‘busy’ public offices , rigidity occupies the chairs and delays are spread out thickly on the tables. Files follow the first law of Newton hence pile up & move with great difficulty. Millions of people waste their  precious hours every day in chasing them . Time was  created as though for wasting only.  Life is wasted away also like this only. It must be remembered that the person,  who does not engross himself diligently in  doing the work allotted to him and the  job  that is accepted by him as the source of his daily bread,  can never be a truly religious person. There are some dumb office-goers who while away their time in office by avoiding office duties and using office hours to write repetitively "Ram, Ram" ( राम,  राम ) few thousand  times in the  note book! He thus neglects the human Ram who has taken pains to follow up his pending matter. This type of so-called religiousness has been nurtured by some so-called holy men who run their establishments as shops and forever are hunting for new customers.”

He further writes:  “If I have my way, I will have the following sign board in each and every office:

“I am being paid salary for doing my work.

I will ensure that the matter for which you have

 come  will be promptly attended, provided it is proper  and rightful  to do so.

I am not at all obliging you when I do that work

but I am only  doing my duty.

Do not insult and degrade me by offering bribe or temptation.

I feel proud to be a self-respecting  human being.”

Hearing about this sign board, Hippocrates should sleep peacefully in his grave.