Word: medalling
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Balthazar's good works have not gone unnoticed. A few months ago, his alma mater, Loyola University School of Medicine, gave him its esteemed Stritch Medal (previous winners include Heart Transplanter Christiaan Barnard and Astronaut-Physician Joseph Kerwin). The citation called him "a beacon for others in his profession and a promise of hope." Also, a film has been made about his storefront clinic by a group at Southern Illinois University...
...Wound. The annual proliferation of decorations has led critics to observe that the government selects winners with the same skill as the blindfold player in a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Periodic attempts to cut back on medal giving, however, have usually failed. True, the Revolution halted the French kings' practice of showering crosses, ribbons, stars, neckpieces, plaques and palms on court favorites, but not for long. Revolutionary Louis de Saint-Just made the bizarre proposal that decorations awarded to those wounded in the revolutionary struggle be affixed to the exact area of the wound...
Napoleon Bonaparte revived medal mania in earnest when he founded the Legion of Honor in 1802. Initially the Legion was supposed to be a corps of distinguished persons rewarded for "services eminents" to France...
Scandals involving medal peddling erupted throughout the 19th century. Premier Maurice Rouvier in 1887 even gave the husband of his mistress the Legion of Honor, presumably for the services eminents he had rendered the chief of government by his complaisance...
...recent years the ranks of decoration wearers in France have been swollen by purchasers of secondhand medals in flea markets. The lowest-ranking medal of the Legion of Honor, the "Chevalier," can be bought for $50 at the French government mint. There are, of course, penalties (up to two years in prison) for wearing unauthorized decorations, but these are seldom if ever enforced. One reason may be that having a medal does not involve much in the way of an earthly reward; the holder of the lowest grade of the Legion of Honor, for example, gets the princely stipend...