TEDDY BEARs. Cute, furry and cuddly. Who would hate teddy bears? But have you ever thought, isn't it strange how people could design, market and sell such a lifeless creature called teddy bears? Decades ago people might've never had this fact crossing their mind, even some people might think that it's completely absurd. I came across various versions of the origin of teddy bears, and this is one of the teddy bear's histories taken from Teddy Bears & Friends website.

In America, the teddy bear, according to tradition, got its start with a cartoon. The cartoon, drawn by Clifford Berryman and titled "Drawing the Line in Mississippi," showed President Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a baby bear. According to this often told tale, Roosevelt had traveled to Mississippi to help settle a border dispute between that state and Louisiana, and his hosts, wanting to please this avid hunter, took him bear hunting. The hunting was so poor that someone finally captured a bear and invited Roosevelt to shoot. Roosevelt's refusal to fire at such a helpless target inspired Berryman to draw his cartoon with its play on the two ways Roosevelt was drawing a line—settling a border dispute and refusing to shoot a captive animal.

The cartoon appeared in a panel of cartoons drawn by Cliffored Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902. It caused an immediate sensation and was reprinted widely. Apparently this cartoon even inspired Morris and Rose Michtom of Brooklyn, New York, to make a bear in honor of the president's actions. The Michtoms named their bear "Teddy's Bear" and placed it in the window of their candy and stationery store. Instead of looking fierce and standing on all four paws like previous toy bears, the Michtoms' bear looked sweet, innocent, and upright, like the bear in Berryman's cartoon. Perhaps that's why "Teddy's Bear" made a hit with the buying public. In fact, the demand was so strong that the Michtoms, with the help of a wholesale firm called Butler Brothers, founded the first teddy bear manufacturer in the United States, the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company. Meanwhile, across the ocean in Germany, Richard Steiff was working for his aunt, Margarete Steiff, in her stuffed toy business. Richard, a former art student, often visited the Stuttgart Zoo to sketch animals, particularly the bear cubs. In 1902, the same year the Michtoms made "Teddy's Bear," the Steiff firm made a prototype of a toy bear based on Richard's designs.

And that's how it started. Yesterday i had a wonderful time being a radiologist in the annual event; Teddybear Hospital organized by Slainte Soc. The same event last year got me hooked up that i decided to go for it again this year. For a person who've never had Pediatrics attachment (like me), this would be a wonderful experience, huhu. If last year i was a GP, this year i moved to the radiology dept, which couldnt be any more exciting. =P After having their teddy bears checked by the GP, the cute kids came to my counter to have their teddy bear being x-rayed. If last year we only had x-ray machines, this year a more sophisticated device has been brought in- an MRI machine. Same results though, didn't give a better resolution of image anyway. Just the same so-called 'x-ray films'.