Funnbee

1 ) Grover Cleveland

2 ) Charles Henri-Sanson

3 ) Giovanni Battiste Bugatti

4 ) Fernando Alvarez de Toledo

5 ) William Marwood

6 ) Richard Brandon

7 ) Souflikar

During the Ottoman Empire the job of Bostanci was a prestigious one. The title translates to “Gardener”, and he was one… but he was also expected to prune the Emperor’s court through strangulation. They added another twist to it: the condemned raced the executioner through the gardens to the execution spot. If he managed to beat him, his sentence was reduced to banishment. If he lost, he was strangled on the spot and his body thrown in the river. None were as fast as Mahomet IV’s head executioner, Souflikar, as over the course of 5 years he strangled at least 5,000 people – a rate of almost 3 people a day.

While a year ago, some 72 out of 158 nations surveyed by the international watchdog group Transparency International were classified as “corrupt,” now 74 of 163 countries fall into the same category. A few, most notably India, managed to bootstrap themselves (just barely) out of the truly corrupt group, while others, particularly Iran, dug themselves more firmly into that camp.

The police continue to be a central factor in corruption in Haiti, though there is corruption in virtually every governmental body. Since the police are also the officials closest to every individual on a daily basis, it is their corruption that changes the nature of daily life in Haiti, permeating all society and the way business is done.

Corruption is perceived as widespread in this vicious dictatorship run with an iron hand by a strong-willed clique of military leaders, who persist in repression of civil society at every level. Illicit facilitation payments and informal fees are required to access even the most basic government services.

Huge quantities of funds– especially American military and reconstruction aid funds–swirling through this nation, where many civil structures have largely broken down, is a recipe for corruption at all levels. Beyond kidnappings and ransom payments, TI officials say their survey was conducted in the first half of 2006 when funds being handled by the Coalition Provisional Authority were largely exhausted and no longer being disbursed. So the Iraqi government, where corruption is said to be rampant, was in charge of its own funds. International businessmen from a range of countries converging on Baghdad found finance, export credits, contracts and a host of more mundane functions of government all subject to illicit payments.

Guinea has been in a political crisis state for at least three years. Though the current, corrupt president has been in power for 20 years, strong pressure has been building from the public for a change of regime. A public strike that lasted one month finally ended a month ago. There was outright civil strife, obliging the president to appoint a new prime minister. The most controversial, and corrupt, deals surround the mining sector, particularly aluminum. Among foreign businessmen, the general view, according to the TI survey, was that to do business in Guinea you needed “to pay off the guy at the top.”

The key event was the switch from a Canadian company that dominated oil drilling in Sudan, the No. 3 oil producer in Africa, to a Chinese company that took over the contract after the Canadians found corruption and an outrageous human rights record was too rife to be able to continue functioning. China is now responsible for 90% of all oil production in Sudan, which also controls oil flow down a large pipeline through southern Sudan to the sea. Chinese officials have declined any comment on the human rights situation, and TI officials say they are “not too worried about having to pay off the Khartoum government.”

Copper in Katanga, and in the rest of the country, gold, uranium and especially coltan, a rare mineral that’s in every cell phone chip, still drive the corruption that remains rampant in this African nation. A presidential election did little to stop the corruption or the resulting violence that erupted again last month in downtown Kinshasha, the nation’s capital. The president is the principal recipient of routine payments by the mining companies who apparently are prepared to play the very lucrative payoff game that remains as endemic now as it was back during the regime of one of Africa’s historically most corrupt leaders, Mobutu Sese-Seko.

Chad has dropped from No. 1 to No. 7 this year as international aid agencies, particularly the World Bank, have sought to come to grips with one of the world’s most piggish uses of philanthropic funds. Proceeds of a Chad- Cameroon oil pipeline, funded in part by the World Bank and operated by an Exxon Mobil-led consortium, were supposed to have been used to help feed the desperately poor people of both nations. Instead, at least $30 million was diverted to buy arms to keep the government of President Idriss Deby in power. The World Bank, whose president, Paul Wolfowitz, was deeply embarrassed by the fiasco, halted funding more than a year ago, but reached an accord with Chad last July. According to TI officials, the jury’s still out on how effectively it will be implemented.

There continues to be a general lack of engagement between the government and civil society as repression, corruption throughout government ranks and especially in the judiciary and political circles persists, often spilling over into the private sector. In March, the new military-backed government jailed at least 40 prominent business and
government leaders from two of the leading political parties in what was described as an ongoing probe of corruption, but TI officials are little impressed. Still, after five straight years at the top of the list, Bangladesh has signed the United Nations convention against corruption and has now dropped to No. 8.

The most corrupt of the five former Soviet Republics on our list, Uzbekistan is sinking ever deeper into corruption and unrest–in constant turmoil and strife under what the U.S. State Department describes as the authoritarian rule of President Islam Karimov, a communist apparatchik holdover of the old regime, which, while violently suppressing opposition, encourages corruption that permeates society, including the executive branch. Bribery will win you everything from admission to leading educational institutions to a favorable outcome of traffic cases and civil lawsuits.

One of the world’s smallest oil powers, it is also among the most corrupt. Still, possibly under pressure from the major oil companies that operate there, particularly Exxon Mobil, things have improved a trifle, though the corrupt President Teodoro Obiang Nguema remains in power. Now, though, it’s becoming possible to operate a business on a reasonable basis, provided one accepts that 30% of all funds, including oil profits go straight into the pocket of Nguema. Still, the system of corruption now is more rational and orderly than the previous system that amounted to near-total anarchy.

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Some of these techniques are almost too bizarre to believe.
By Olga Rukovets
Reviewed by QualityHealth’s Medical Advisory Board

Have you ever considered the fact that you were ill because there was too much blood in your body? How about curing yourself by drilling a hole in your skull to let evil spirits out? These questions may sound far-fetched to you, but there are those who believed–and, though far fewer–who still believe in these causes and treatments for certain health conditions.

Medicine has come a long way over the years, but some things have not changed. Here are nine strange but true medical practices that will leave you shocked, especially when you learn that many of them are still in use today.

1. Bloodletting.
This was a particularly common practice in ancient times all the way up until the late 19th century. The process involves the removal of rather large amounts of blood due to the belief that this will cure or prevent the patient from a variety of illnesses.

Bloodletting has not been proven efficient and, in modern times, has been discarded in all but a few specific conditions. The logic of bloodletting was based on the theory of the four humours. This theory described a mystical equilibrium between several bodily fluids which maintain human life, and would be disturbed by too much blood–resulting in illness. Today, the term for drawing blood for laboratory analysis or blood transfusion is “phlebotomy.”

2. Hirudotherapy.
This technique, which utilizes leeches, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2004. Along with maggots, leeches were some of the first live animals to earn the FDA’s approval.

For healthy people, the idea of coming near these creatures seems pretty grotesque, but for patients who are ill, the results are well worth it. Leeches have been capable of restoring healthy tissue when more high-tech medicine could not.

Medicinal leeches have been used for bloodletting–thought to be beneficial for whatever ailed patients–from Hippocrates’ time through the mid-19th century. Currently, leeches are applied to the necessary site, from which they suck the excess blood and reduce the swelling in the tissues, promoting healing by allowing fresh, oxygenated blood to reach the area. The leeches also secrete an anticoagulant (known as hirudin) that prevents the clotting of the blood.

The leech’s saliva is thought to be beneficial as well, providing a local anesthetic that the leech uses to avoid detection by the host. The leech’s gut also holds a bacterium known as Aeromonan hydrophila, which helps in the digestion of ingested blood and produces an antibiotic that kills other potentially dangerous bacteria.
3. Maggot debridement therapy (MDT).

Maggots have shown to be quite efficient in the art of healing wounds. This was first visible centuries ago when wounded soldiers whose injuries were maggot-infested healed better than those whose were not. These maggots actually consume the dead tissue and leave the healthy, living tissues alone. Maggots also expel matter which restrains or even kills bacteria, proving especially useful in areas with poor circulation where antibiotics would be of little benefit.

Since the 16th century up until the 1940s, when antibiotic therapy and surgical techniques replaced it, the use of maggots was used and recognized for its healing abilities. In 1989, the advantage of MDT in certain cases over antibiotics was realized when maggots were proven to be more competent cleaners of wounds than any other non-surgical treatment. In 2004, maggots were approved by the FDA.

4. Fire cupping.
This technique is exactly what it sounds like. A vacuum is created by air heated by fire that’s put in a glass cup and placed against a patient’s skin. The cups are bell shaped and hold about 4 fluid ounces. Usually, 8 to 12 cups are placed on the patient’s back in two parallel columns.

Circular marks are left on the patient’s back–the darkness varies directly with how long the cups are left on. Usually, an application of about 20 minutes is average, for the back; however this can vary.

So, what is it for exactly? According to the American Cancer Society, this practice of Chinese medicine is “recommended mainly for treating bronchial congestion, arthritis, and pain. It is also promoted to ease depression and reduce swelling.” Yet, the society states, “Available scientific evidence does not support claims that cupping has any health benefits.”

5. Trepanation.
This surgery is performed by drilling or scraping a hole into the skull, in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases or for mystical purposes. Evidence of this practice has been traced all the way back to Neolithic times onwards. During prehistoric times, trepanation was thought to cure diseases by allowing the evil spirits and demons to escape through the hole that was created in the skull. Trepanation advocates and patrons still exist, believing this is the means to better health and longevity.

In modern times, the medical procedure of corneal transplant surgery also uses something known as trepanning or trephining. However, this is performed on the eye with an instrument called a trephine.

6. Laughter therapy.
We’ve all heard the expression, “Laughter is the best medicine,” but is there really any truth in it? Many people believe there is. The practice of laughter therapy, also called humor therapy, is the idea of using humor to promote overall health and wellness. For years, the use of humor has been used in medicine (as early as the 13th century, surgeons used humor to distract patients from pain), and emerging research is showing that laughter may actually have therapeutic value.

In his 1979 book, Anatomy of an Illness, a man named Norman Cousins claimed to have cured himself of a serious illness with a regimen of laughter and vitamins after years of pain. This brought more attention to the idea of laughter as a source of treatment. Medical journals have recognized that laughter therapy can help improve quality of life for patients with unremitting illnesses. In addition, many hospitals provide laughter therapy programs as a complementary treatment to illness.

7. Malaria therapy.
No, this isn’t therapy used to treat malaria. Instead, this was the idea of using malaria as therapy–more specifically, as a treatment for syphilis. Until the early 1900s, there was no treatment for the sexually transmitted disease (STD) when Viennese neurologist Wagner-Jauregg had the idea to treat syphilis patients with malaria-infected blood. The patients would then develop malaria, which would cause an extremely high fever that would destroy the syphilis bacteria. When that happened, they would be treated with the malaria drug quinine and cured of both ailments.

Of course, there were the side effects–such as the high fever, but they were worth the outcome, especially without any other options. Wagner-Jauregg even won the Nobel Prize for malaria inoculation in 1927, and the treatment was common until the development of penicillin came along and doctors had a safer and more efficient cure for the STD.

8. Seizure therapy.
Hungarian pathologist Ladislas von Meduna, who had the idea that seizures could be used to treat schizophrenia, engineered the idea of seizure therapy. Eventually, he found that camphor dissolved in oil worked in both animals and in humans.

On January 23, 1934, he tried the injection of camphor oil in a 33-year-old severely catatonic patient. After five treatments, catatonia and psychotic symptoms were gone. Meduna continued this treatment on more patients, and out of 26 patients, he achieved recovery in 10 of them and improvement in three.

Eventually, the side effects were too dangerous, including memory loss and broken bones, and seizure therapy was discontinued.

9. Insulin coma therapy.
In 1927, Viennese physician Manfred Sakel accidentally gave one of his diabetic patients an insulin overdose, which sent her into a coma. Upon waking, the woman, who happened to be a drug addict, claimed that her morphine craving was suddenly gone. When this mistake occurred again, with the same curative result, Sakel developed an idea.

Soon, he began intentionally testing what became known as insulin coma therapy on drug addicts and patients who suffered from schizophrenia and psychosis. He reported a 90 percent recovery rate, particularly among the schizophrenics. Some experts believe that the hefty dose of insulin causes blood sugar levels to plummet, which starves the brain of food and sends the patient into a coma. But why this would enable recovery for drug addicts or psychiatric patients is still not clear. Mathematician and inspiration for the film A Beautiful Mind, John Nash was actually a recipient of insulin coma therapy as a treatment for his schizophrenia.

Either way, the therapy was deemed dangerous–causing death in one to two percent of patients–and eventually eradicated.

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