An article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal took a stab at analyzing the mental illnesses of various characters described in “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories. After all, Winnie is short for Winnipeg, the home town of Canadian soldier Harry Colebourn (*Winnipeg is Cree for muddy water*). Colebourn had bought a black bear cub that would become a mascot of his Canadian Army Reserve unit. During Colebourn’s deployment in WWI, Winnie was left in the care of the London Zoo (to which she was later donated). Christopher Robin Milne, son of author A.A. Milne, visited Winnie at the London Zoo and named his teddy after her. The entertaining medical paper can be read through this link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/…/pdf/20001212s00009p1557.pdf

The voice actor responsible for the voice of ‘Tigger’ in Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh films, Paul Winchell, was also the first person to build and patent a mechanical artificial heart. Winchell wanted to become a doctor but, living through the Depression, his family could not afford the tuition. Nevertheless, Winchell’s interest in medicine never dwindled. With the assistance of Dr. Henry Heimlich (the inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver), Winchell designed an artificial heart; became an acupuncturist; and even worked as a medical hypnotist. He died one day before the death of another Pooh character voice actor, John Fiedler, who voiced ‘Piglet’.