The History of the Air Ambulance

We have all come to know the familiar sound of the helicopter overhead that is flying quickly from the scene of a tragic car crash to the nearest trauma center at a nearby hospital. We may have even known someone who has needed to utilize such air ambulance service. Do you know the history behind these marvelous methods of medical transportation?

Think back nearly a century ago. During World War I, air ambulances were first introduced. Between 1914 and 1918, a variety of military organization tested the use of flying ambulances to treat patients. Over time, this beginning has spawned into the air ambulances of today.

What later became the Royal Doctor Flying Service started in the year 1928. This milestone event was the first air ambulance service ever to exist. This service began in the Australian Outback. This non-profit organization was intended to provide service to people living in the remote areas of the Outback. The Royal Doctor Flying Service provided emergency medical care, as well as, primary care for individuals who found it difficult to reach general healthcare facilities or hospitals due to the distance.

In 1934, Marie Marvingt started an air ambulance service. This was the first civil air ambulance service in Africa. The air ambulance service was established in Morocco. Again, the remote areas and terrain played a role in the decision to begin this service in the specific location.

Marie Marvingt used her pioneering spirit and record-breaking personality to help others when she began the air ambulance unit. She was the first woman to fly combat missions as a bomber pilot. She also was a qualified nurse. Specializing in aviation medicine she was the perfect candidate to begin the air ambulance service in Morocco. In fact, she worked to establish air ambulance services worldwide.

It was in 1936 that a military air ambulance service assisted wounded. The injured were evacuated from the Spanish Civil War. The wounded received treatment in Nazi Germany.

The Saskatchewan government established the first civil air ambulance in North America in 1946. Regina, Canada was home to this landmark service. Still today the air ambulance service is in operation.

Only one year later in 1947, Schaefer Air Service began. This was the first air ambulance service in the U.S. Founded in Los Angeles, California by J. Walter Schaefer. The Schaefer air ambulance service also became the first to be FAA certified in the United States.

It wasn’t until November 1 of 1970, that the first German Air ambulance helicopter began service at the hospital of Harlaching, Munich. This unit was called Christoph 1. As the idea spread over Germany, the air ambulance service continued to grow rapidly. By 1975, Christoph 10 began service. Currently, around 80 helicopters are being used as air ambulances in Germany. Each unit is named after Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers.

Denver, Colorado was home to the first hospital-based air ambulance medical helicopter in the United States. In 1977, Flight for Life began. Soon, the helicopter air ambulances expanded to use other types of aircraft.

In 1977, Ontario, Canada a flight paramedic program began with a single rotor-wing aircraft. Today, this program has become the largest and most sophisticated air ambulance program in North America. The fleet is dispatched to over 17,000 missions annually.

Lee County, Florida began a public service air ambulance transport in 1978. They began using a Bell47 then progressed to a BO 105. Currently, they use a BO 105 and an EC-145.

Today, the air ambulance industry has grown and expanded to become worldwide. Aircraft vary from helicopters to jets. The medical advances and technology has also grown to include high-tech tools and equipment that can effectively monitor and prolong life during medical emergencies in the air.

Arthritis

Arthritis
Djehuty

Arthritis by Djehuty Ma’at-Ra

The first Western disease I was ever familiar with as a little
boy was arthritis. My beloved paternal grandmother, Bertha
Cooper, suffered from this pathology for many years. She had it
very bad in her wrists and joints. I remember her asking me if I
would go to the corner liquor store on the corner of 101st
Street and Avalon Boulevard in Watts, California, and buy her
some Ben Gay, a white pharmaceutical anti-inflammatory rubbing
cream. She would rub Ben Gay on her wrists and joints and her
tendons as well.

As a little boy, I didn’t understand disease. I didn’t know how
my grandmother developed arthritis. All I knew is that she had
it (and claimed it too).

However, when the Universe bestowed its Akashic Records of
health knowledge upon me in the late 1990s, I finally understood
why Grandma Sis (Bertha) developed and suffered from arthritis.
You see, my grandmother was originally from the South,
Mississippi to be exact. The ideal dinner was “soul food.” My
grandmother was an excellent cook and I never tasted any food
back in my deaf, dumb, and blind days and years that tasted
better than my paternal grandmother’s food/cooking. However,
while this so-called food, soul food, tasted good, I now
understand that taste is not the criterion or measuring stick
for what is healthy or nutritional. It was Grandma’s good
tasting soul food that did her in with arthritis and tendonitis.
Yes, all that cornbread, collard and mustard greens, salt pork,
candied yams, fried chicken, liver, catfish, pork chops, rock
Cornish hen, neck bones, ham, white rice, etc. eventually did
her (and the rest of my family members) in. Not to mention
eating all that white, refined Webber’s and Wonder bread, flap
jacks (pancakes), syrup and biscuits, bacon, sausages, jelly
cake, jelly sandwiches, saltine crackers, Vienna sausages,
potted meat, Spam, hog’s head cheese, liverwurst, etc. And what
about all that hot cocoa, coffee (laced with white sugar and
dairy cream), butter milk, pet milk, Kool-Aid, and soda pop that
she drunk?

She didn’t smoke cigarettes like her five sons, but she would
roll up her own smokes with Prince Albert brand tobacco and Zig
Zag paper. My childhood friends thought my grandmother smoked
marijuana. It was a little embarrassing until they found out
what it was she was really smoking.

I mentioned all of the above to let you all know that my
grandmother’s arthritis was caused by what she ate and drank on
a daily basis through ignorance, tradition, and habit.

All that meat converted into uric acid in my grandmother’s
joints and ligaments. The starches broke down into carbonic acid
and also made its way into her joints. And so did the lactic
acid from the brake down of the dairy products she consumed.

The smoking also created an over acid condition in my
grandmother as well. She also had bouts with gout, which is
nothing but arthritis in the ankle area.

You see, arthritis is a condition of inflammation of the joints.
That’s all it is. The Latin word “Arth” means “joints,” and the
English suffix, “it is” means “inflammation.” What is
inflammation? A burning! What causes this burning or
inflammation? ACID!!! Plain and simple!

Grandma Sis was lucky, eventually dying from degeneracy (that
doctors call natural death). However, her sons (and
daughter-in-laws, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren) were not
so lucky, dying from the insidious cancer, including my father
from lung cancer in 1994 and my mother from pancreatic cancer in
1999.

My family could not, would not, and to this very day, still will
not believe that what they put into their mouths cause their
pathologies and eventually kills them. It was easy to write me
off when I was a Muslim and member of the Nation of Islam in the
early 1990s, simply saying “that boy is mad at white folks and
the world!” But today as a Naturist, what’s their excuse?
Nothing but ignorance and traditional paralysis! Soul food is a
tradition, Djehuty! Yes, a tradition that leads to an early
grave!

One of the greatest contributors of arthritis is collard and
mustard greens. Sorry Black folks, Negroes, and soul food
lovers! But this is true! Greens are laced with “oxalic” acid
and this oxalic acid is greatly produced when you cook the
greens. This is true! And for you rat feces-laced chocolate
lovers out there, your precious chocolate also contains oxalic
acid.

Now, I don’t want you thinking soul food is the cause of
arthritis, because a lot of white folks, Mexicans/Latinos, and
Asians also suffer from arthritis. Like soul food, the Standard
American Diet will also cause arthritis. Arthritis is an
American disease!

If you understand arthritis, you should understand tendonitis
and gout. They are acidic fluid build up problems in the joints
that cause inflammation (pain).

Most modern day suffers of arthritis (and tendonitis and gout)
are fighting the symptoms of these inflammatory diseases with
pharmaceutical grade drugs. Even though God instructed Bible
believers to heal themselves with herbs (Revelations 22:2,
Ezekiel 47:12, and Pslams 104:14), in their strange obedience to
God, they take the enemy’s pharmaceutical drugs that prolong the
arthritis. Why and how? Because pharmaceutical grade drugs,
though made from alkaloids, eventually break down into ACID
(especially ascetic acid, which eats your red blood cells up) in
the body, and acid produces inflammation, so how intelligent is
it to take something to target the symptom which eventually
lengthens and worsen the initial condition?

Mother Nature has provided healing for arthritis and other
inflammatory diseases. To heal from arthritis, all one needs to
consume is certain herbs. Herbs that are anti-inflammatory in
nature are the best to heal from arthritis. These herbs include
Meadowsweet, Peppermint, Wintergreen, Birch, White and Black
Willow Bark and Balm of Gilead.

However, other certain herbs work synergistically with the herbs
supra. Personally, no healing from arthritis can take place
efficiently without the following herbs: Devil’s Claw, Boswellia
(Frankincense), Uva Ursi, Mullein leaves, Saffron, Cayenne
pepper, Feverfew, and Guaiac wood.

Devil’s Claw, Boswellia, Uva Ursi, and Mullein are the paramount
arthritis herbs. They greatly counteract mucus, which is the
byproduct of acid, which causes inflammation.

Organic sulfur, commonly called MSM Sulfur, is also great in
healing arthritis. So is Noni juice!

You can make your own healing salve as well from a base butter
or oil such as shea or cocoa butter, coconut, olive, or almond
oil (or any other good oil) and add in a few drops (10-15 drops)
of the following essential oils: Peppermint, Clove, Wintergreen,
Eucalyptus, Birch, and/or Spearmint.

You can rub this salve directly on your joints or other problems
area. It is very soothing and healing.

And of course, as an herbalist, I have formulated my own Joint
Formula that consists of all the herbs mentioned above that is a
powerful little formula that works wonders for me when my wrists
start to hurt from excessive typing (typing up all that legal
pleading).

I can’t forget about magnet therapy as well for arthritis.
Magnets make a problem or injured area alkaline and also
enhances circulation to the problem area so that healing can
begin.

My good friend and brother, Mark Lomax, a musician, healed
himself from serious bouts of gout, another acid condition. It’s
been a few years now since he had gout. What did he do? First,
he detoxified his body on our Full Body Detox. Then, he did a
daily regimen of our Electric Greens Cell Food (pure
alkalinity), Joints Formula and Black Cherry Juice Concentrate.
You wouldn’t recognize this brother if you knew him 3 years ago.
He also lost more than 70 lbs on these herbs. This man is a
walking example of healing!

I should also mention the importance of pineapple enzymes called
Bromelain for the healing of arthritis and other acid
conditions. Bromelain or pineapple enzymes are anti-inflammatory
in nature and effect and therefore provide healing for
arthritis. They taste just like candy and are chewable and you
can chew as much as you like, although 3-6 tablets after dinner
ought to get the job done. You can find Bromelain at most good
health food stores.

Soaking inflamed body parts in hot water and essential oils of
Peppermint and Eucalyptus is also beneficial for arthritis.

But most importantly in fighting arthritis is modified diet. Cut
out or cut down on meat and dairy products. These are two of the
biggest culprits in causing arthritis. A vegetable cocktail
consisting of celery, parsley, apple and/or carrot (for
sweetness and base) 3-4 times weekly will greatly remove acid
buildup in the joints. By all means, avoid all acidic beverages
(beer, soda pop, milk, orange juice, wine, coffee, etc.).

Man, life is so wonderful when you know how to heal and prevent
disease. The understanding of diseases is just as important.
Sometimes I’m full of grief and sorrow from my knowledge and
knowing that people suffer from a lack of knowledge (and
insanity too). See Ecclesiastes 1:18 and Hosea 4:6

However, the children of the future, including my son, Asim, and
daughter, Layla, and other Conscious Minds offspring – Nadya,
Najee, Elijah, Asar, Sunshine and the newest edition from Melia
and Obea, and the others (out here on the West Coast in Los
Angeles) will all benefit from this profound knowledge of proper
diet as well as from my suffering and grief, as well as their
parents. I’m also quite sure that many children around the
nation will also benefit from their parents’ reading and
applying this health information and knowledge that is freely
distributed.

As much as I loved soul food and my relative’s cooking back in
my death (Negro) days, you couldn’t put a gun to my head and
compel me to eat a piece of chicken or pork today, and I mean
that! I love myself too much to harm my temple of God. My
children are beautiful (and highly astute and precocious)
because of what their parents ate before and while conceiving
them. You can do it too!

Make the change people! Taste is not the criterion for what is
healthy. Nutritional content is!

Peace and love, readership!

This article was compliments of www.DHERBS.com and Djehuty
Ma’at-Ra, the People’s Herbalist!

MSM Sulfur-
http://www.dherbs.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=38&products_
id=73

About the author:
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What You Should Know About Arthritis

What You Should Know About Arthritis
Robert Thatcher

Should the person experience some muscle pain which lasts more than 2 or 3 days, there is a strong chance that one has arthritis.
Arthritis is a common disease that affects millions of people worldwide. This can be felt in the persons joints, skin and organs inside the body. Should the person feel anything wrong, it is advisable to go straight to the doctor.
Doctors have discovered that there are over 100 types of arthritis. Given the number, the doctor will not be able to know which one is affecting the person without an examination.
There are 2 common forms of arthritis. The first is rheumatoid arthritis which is considered a chronic disease. There is inflammation in the joints caused by cartilage damage. Anyone who has this will suffer long term joint damage that will lead to chronic pain and disability. Pain is usually felt when waking up in the morning and will gradually disappear during the day.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a problem that will not go away. This happens in three stages. The first is swelling. The second is the rapid division and growth of cells. The third is when these cells release enzymes that will eat the bone causing the joint to lose shape until the person will not be able to move it anymore.
Since this is systemic disease, it can spread and affect other organs in the body. The best way to prevent is from happening is detecting it early to prevent the person from being disabled.
This can be treated with proper medication and therapy. There many drugs available that the patient can use. Some drugs offer pain relief to reduce the inflammation. Others can just do one function.
The second is called osteoarthritis. This happens more often than rheumatoid arthritis but unlike the first, there is no inflammation present. The cartilage in the joint is damaged and will eventually degenerate. Pain will slightly be felt when the person gets up but this will hurt later on during the day.
Osteoarthritis can either be primary or secondary. When it is primary, it is often associated with age. It is similar to a car where the parts have to be replaced due to wear and tear. Doctors consider this to be normal as people grow older.
The secondary type is often associated with something else that has caused this to happen. Some of these factors are an injury that took place, heredity, obesity and bone density.
Osteoarthritis can be treated with medication, exercise, weight control, joint protection, physical and occupational therapy. This is done to relieve the pain and slow the progression of the disease.
Both of these are caused by different things. The common thing between these 2 types is that joint pain can happen anywhere in the body.
Given the many medications available to treat this disease, the patient has to be aware of the side effects of each before choosing which one to use. The doctor should explain these to the person in order to make the right decision.
Arthritis and its different forms will not go away. Since this is an insurable disease, the best thing that the doctor and others can do until a cure if found is to help the patient ease the pain the slow the growth of the disease.

About The Author

Robert Thatcher is a freelance publisher based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides arthritis resources on http://www.your-arthritis-resources.info.