Tag: Vasile

  • The latest European Wrestling Championships

    The latest European Wrestling Championships


    Wrestling was first included in the Olympic programme as early as 1904 during the Olympics in St. Louis, but werent part of the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912. Since the 1920 edition in Anvers, wrestlers have been a constant presence in the Olympic Games. Wrestlers from Romania made their debut at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and since then they have reaped 34 medals, 7 gold, 8 silver and 19 bronze. The first medalist was Francisc Horvath, who reaped bronze in the free-style event in Melbourne 1956.


    The first gold medal for Romania was obtained Greek-Roman wrestler Dumitru Pârvulescu in Rome in 1960. Romania hasnt obtained an Olympic gold medal in this discipline since 1988, when Vasile Puscasu compelled recognition in the 100 kilogram category in Seoul. Although next year well be celebrating 20 years since the introduction of womens wrestling in the Olympic Games, Romanias women representatives havent claimed an Olympic medal yet.


    However, wrestling lovers have pinned their hopes on Romanias women representatives for the next years Olympics in Paris as at the latest wrestling competition in Zagreb, Croatia, four out of the five medals won by Romania were in the womens competition. Andreea Ana, in the 55 kilogram category and Alexandra Anghel, in the 72, stepped onto the first step of the podium while Catalina Axente, in the 76 kilogram, Krista Incze in the 65 and Denis Mihai in the 55 kilogram category of the mens event became bronze medalists.


    On of the Romanian wrestlers standing chances of winning a medal in Paris is the 23-year-old Andreea Ana who has so far walked away with four medals from the European Championships. She won bronze in Bucharest in 2019 and in Warsaw two years later, and also became gold medalist in Budapest last year.


    Another athlete, who could put up a good show in Paris, is Alexandra Anghel holder of the European bronze in Kaspiysk, Russia in 2018. She also won a bronze medal in Belgrade last year.


    (bill)


  • Forerunners of neurosurgery in Romania

    Forerunners of neurosurgery in Romania

    The
    modernization of Romania’s medical school was made concurrently
    with that of the entire society in the principalities of Wallachia
    and Moldova towards mid 19th
    century. The pioneers of this movement were initially foreign
    doctors, but also Romanians who studied abroad, as was the case of
    doctor Leon Sculy, one of the pioneers of surgery and neurosurgery in
    Iasi, northern Romania and also the founding father of the local
    faculty of medicine, whose first dean was.




    When
    this education institution was officially opened in December 1879,
    Leon Sculy was teaching the anatomy course. Born in Piatra Neamt, in
    1853, the future doctor came from a Greek family as we learn from
    professor Richard Constantinescu, custodian of the Medical History
    Museum with the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Iasi.




    Richard
    Constantinescu:Leon
    Sculy had another name – Logothetides,
    or Logotheti in short. He had a brother and a sister. Interesting in
    his case is the fact that along the years he had been depicted by
    various acquaintances in opposite ways; he was either a good,
    friendly guy or a tough one. His contemporaries described him as a
    guy with a short fuse, difficult to get along with. In a text
    published by the Iasi medical review, his collaborator doctor Paul
    Anghel described him as ‘a nice middle-sized man with whiskers. He
    was a stout man but with a strange gait pushing one of his shoulders
    forward all of the time. He was smart and waggish.’ That was the
    portrait he got from another fellow surgeon who was also a man of
    letters. Leon Sculy trained as a doctor at the universities of
    Montpelier and Paris. He took his PhD in France then he came back to
    Iasi to become collaborator of professor Ludovic Russ, an Austrian
    considered the founding father of surgery in Moldova. He was one of
    the promoters of Romanian neurosurgery and had many operations on the
    skull cap. He was one of those who introduced hygiene rules and used
    the revolutionary X-rays to diagnose his patients. Leon Sculy had a
    significant contribution to the introduction of several surgical
    techniques in that Romanian province.


    Besides
    his medical activity Leon Sculy also got into politics and he became
    an MP together with his brother, but he was mainly interested in
    charity.




    Richard
    Constantinescu:
    He was a great student supporter, deeply involved in university life.
    I learnt from a paper published between the two world wars that part
    of the Jewish community in Iasi, as a token of appreciation for this
    doctor, planted several olive trees in Palestine in a park named
    after him, Leon Sculy. I found this piece of information only in that
    article and need to do some research to confirm it. He even used to
    help his patients with money.
    In a paper published in Iasi, one of his students who was ill in a
    hospital in Ungheni thanked professor Sculy who came to visit him in
    a carriage. The professor wouldn’t wait for the train and had to
    cross the river in the carriage running the risk of getting drowned
    by the heavy waters. His student was so impressed that he wanted to
    thank his former professor in a newspaper. This practice of helping
    the poor with money was common among the doctors of that time. They
    used to place money under the pillow of their patients so that
    relatives might
    be
    able to buy for them the medicine they couldn’t afford otherwise.


    Although
    people know very little about doctor Leon Sculy, he is still
    appreciated at the Faculty of Medicine in Iasi.


    Richard
    Constantinescu: In
    the Institute of Anatomy with the Medicine University in Iasi, there
    is a bas-relief representing Leon Sculy and at the beginning of a new
    school year, professors are referring to his personality in an
    excursus on the history of this institution. They are mentioning Leon
    Sculy as the first dean, the first professor of anatomy and pioneer
    of thoracic and neurosurgery. His political and charity activities
    are also being mentioned. So we can safely say that his biography
    deserves being revisited. His brother Vasile had a mansion close to
    Iasi, which he donated to the Romanian state in the First World War
    to use it as a hospital for the treatment of typhus.





    Pioneer
    of neurosurgery, promoter of sterilization and antisepsis as well as
    of hygiene as a means of fighting diseases, the
    great philanthropist, doctor
    Leon Sculy was also a passionate
    collector.
    An icon from his collection, featuring
    Saint
    Haralambie, traditionally known as ‘the plague healer’, has
    recently been put up for sale.





    (translated
    by bill)