How far back can we find cases of spina bifida?  Is it a relatively newer birth defect?  I thought I’d do some investigating.

I was stunned!

Didja know ….

… that in the tomb of King Tut, there was discovered a wooden box with 2 small mummified fetuses?  Some historians believe that young King Tut had no children – but he was certainly old enough to sire children and indeed had a wife.  But the fact is there WERE two fetuses discovered and whether they were Tut’s children or not is beside the point.  The point is … they were there and radiography strongly suggested that one of the children “had a condition known as Sprengel’s deformity, with congenitally high right scapula, spina bifida and scoliosis.” Read more:  http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tutchildren.htm#ixzz32p467ZkE

A little more google searching gave me some more limited information.  The actual first recorded case of spina bifida was in Arabia in the year 1085 AD.  The name was given to the condition by a Dutchman named Nicolaas Tulgius in the year 1637.  And the final fact I could scrounge up was that a fetus found in 1881 showed that spina bifida occurs in the first month of pregnancy.  (uh … they ‘found’ it?  Too many unanswered questions here!)

So there you have it – a bit of spina bifida trivia.

I feel it more important to share with you some trivia Fox News had today – to recognize it being Memorial Day.

Didja know …

The first Memorial Day was celebrated in 1868 – after the Civil War ended.  It was created as a special day where the graves of those who gave their lives for their country would be recognized by placing flowers on their graves.  It was the day you were supposed to decorate the graves – hence its original name of Decoration Day.

Now here’s the stunner.

The Fox News correspondent gave us 3 numbers to pick from that was the amount of lives given for our freedom.  They ranged from 300,000 to 1.3 million.  And the answer is …

1.3 million.

So many lives given.  For us.

Please remember those who gave their lives so that we may live freely in the great United States of America.  Count your blessings folks.

Just Laurel