https://archive.ph/qVNoB
"When Dilip Mahalanabis died last month aged 87, it was scarcely remarked upon
outside India. Yet the distinguished paediatrician deserved a less muted
valediction.
His pioneering medical work among refugees fleeing war in the 1970s
demonstrated that oral rehydration therapy — a simple solution of glucose,
salts and water designed to replace vital fluids lost during bouts of
infectious disease — could be successfully administered at scale, even during a
desperate humanitarian crisis.
The Lancet estimates this treatment has helped
save 54 million lives over the past half century.
Mahalanabis was born in East Bengal, now Bangladesh, in 1934 and educated at a
medical school in Kolkata. After a spell working for the NHS in London, he
eventually returned to the city in 1966 to begin research into oral rehydration
treatments at Kolkata’s Johns Hopkins University International Centre for
Medical Research and Training. But in 1971, the Bangladesh war of independence
broke out: thousands fled to refugee camps on the country’s border with India.
Infectious disease spread rapidly in these close confines, and Mahalanabis
decided to put his theory into practice."
Via
Future Crunch issue 190:
https://futurecrunch.com/
RIP,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
