Archive Category: Medicine
Terrifying Surgical Tools of Old
Think your health care plan is bad? Consider yourself lucky that you don’t live back in the middle ages when "advanced" surgeries were done using these 20 seriously scary surgical tools. Yikes.
This one to the left is the Arrow Remover:
Arrow Remover - Not much is known about this tool, but it is hypothesized that it was inserted into the wound in a contracted position, with the central shaft used to grasp the arrow. The blades, which appear to have their sharp edges facing outward, were then expanded using the scissor-like handles…
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by yugosakimi.
Cardiovascular Paper: Printed Anatomy by Laurent Champoussin

No, not a tattoo though undoubtedly it would make an excellent anatomically-minded example that would rival this famous skull face tattoo we had before on Neatorama. The gruesome painting is actually printed paper by Paris-based photographer Laurent Champoussin.
Vanessa Ruiz of Street Anatomy asked Laurent what inspired his art series titled Cardiovascular Paper:
I’ve always been interested by the écorché model. I was inspired by the classical representations of Andréas Vesalius, Charles Estienne or Adrian Van Den Spieghel. My idea was to play with the partial, the uncovered (open/discover) of an essential part of ourselves. I also wanted to work on the propagation, the invasion. My will was to design the model, to file down it like a texture and I hope, somewhere like a poetry.
More at Street Anatomy Blog: Link | Laurent’s website and blog - via Cakehead Loves Evil
Alcoholic Monkeys of St. Kitts
[YouTube - Link]
The Vervet Monkeys of St. kitts are known to raid local bars for a drink or two. Studies have found that the percentage of alcoholism in these monkeys matches the percentage of the human population - most drink in moderation, 12% are steady drinkers, 5% drink to the last drop and some are even teetotalers!
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by dradell.
The Girl Who Does Not Age
At 16 years of age and weighing only 16 pounds, Brooke Greenberg has a previously-undescribed condition which in many aspects seems to show an absence of aging of the body.
She is infantile in size, but she does not have ordinary dwarfism. She still has her baby teeth. Her cognition is that of a child. Her bone age is only that of a 10-year old.
Does Brooke hold the secret to the fountain of youth? Her physicians are hopeful that sorting out the mechanism for her persistent youthful characteristics might lead to more insights on the normal process of aging:
Brooke hasn’t aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke’s body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why.
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Becoming a Giant: 6′ 6″, 480 lb. Woman is Still Growing
Ten years ago, Tanya Angus was 5′11" tall and living in Michigan when she began to get migraine headaches and noticed her shoes did not fit. Not only did her condition worsen, but she started to grow and her voice got deeper. After several doctors thought she was making up her symptoms, her mother took Tanya to her childhood pediatrician who finally diagnosed her illness.
Tanya suffers from a rare condition called acromegaly, where excessive amounts of growth hormone are released. Andre the Giant was a famous sufferer, as was Richard Keil who portrayed the famous villain "Jaws" in the James Bond movies.
In Tanya’s case, a tumor wrapped itself around her pituitary gland, causing her condition. Unfortunately, despite several surgeries and medication, it has failed to stop the release of growth hormone. Today Tanya is a staggering 6′6" (2.0 m) and 480 pounds (218 kg), and still growing.
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
Sushi: The Culprit of the Urban Tapeworm Problem?
Before you eat that oh-so-delicious piece of salmon sashimi, consider this: sushi (as well as undercooked fish) may be contributing to the growing problem of urban tapeworm …
Once the bane of rural Japanese villagers, a paper in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports on the spread of the the salmon tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense. The parasite, which can reach lengths of 39 feet (12 meters), has been steadily increasing its global distribution and prevalence – mostly among yuppies with a hankering for sashimi and ceviche.
One hospital in Japan reported 14 cases last year, up from 3 cases in 2000. And starting in 2006, the tapeworm has been popping up for the first time in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, farm-raised salmon from South America have been plagued by a closely related tapeworm that normally infects perch and other freshwater fish.
Machine Keeps Heart Beating Outside of Body
Researchers at the North Carolina State University has developed a machine that can keep a heart beating outside the body. The potential medical benefit is huge, though for whatever reason I kept on thinking about Dr. Frankenstein:
"Researchers can obtain pig hearts from a pork processing facility and use the system to test their prototypes or practice new surgical procedures," says Andrew Richards, a Ph. D. student in mechanical engineering at NC State who designed the heart machine.
The computer-controlled machine, which operates using pressurized saline solution, also allows researchers to film the interior workings of the pumping heart - enabling them to ascertain exactly which surgical technologies and techniques perform best for repairing heart valves.
Oh, there’s a video all right:
Keep Calm and Don’t Sneeze

Is the swine flu hysteria over yet? Here’s a clever poster by Work for Food reminding you to keep calm and carry on: Link - via BB-Blog
Similarly, in Neatorama’s Online Shop: Swine Flu: Bacon’s Revenge T-shirt
Contact Lens Enables Transplant
A new procedure to help people with damaged corneas is showing promise in three patients so far. A team from the University of New South Wales in Sydney takes stem cells from the patient’s good eye and cultures them in a contact lens. When the cells have multiplied, they place the lens over the patient’s affected eye and leave it for around three weeks. During that time, the cells begin to grow into the damaged cornea and help regenerate it. In effect, it’s a stem cell transplant from one eye to the other.
Researcher Dr Nick Di Girolamo said: ‘The procedure is totally simple and cheap.
‘Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient’s own serum, and is completely non-invasive.
‘There’s no suturing, there is no major operation. You don’t need any fancy equipment.’
The contact lenses used in the operation are already widely used after eye surgery.
The researchers hope the technique can be adapted for other parts of the eye, such as the retina, and even elsewhere in the body.
Bullet Removed After 42 Years
65-year-old Hou Guoying recently had a bullet removed that had been lodged in her face for 42 years! She was shot accidently during the Cultural Revolution in China in 1967.
The bullet apparently hit her when it ricocheted through a wall during a fight in between rival factions of Red Guards.
But doctors initially told her that her wound was only superficial, the Chongqing News reported.
Constant headaches and difficulty eating eventually led to an x-ray in 1978 that revealed the bullet.
She had refused an operation because of poor medical facilities in Chongqing at the time - resulting in three more decades of discomfort.
This year, the pain began to spread to the rest of her body, so the bullet finally came out. Hou is recovering from the surgery. Link -via Arbroath
Reznor Helps Transplant Patient
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is doing something special during the band’s final tour. By offering special concert packages and encouraging donations, they have raised over $850,000 to help Eric De La Cruz get heart transplant.
De La Cruz was turned down from transplant lists because of the lack of transplant centers in Nevada. Reznor became aware of his situation after De La Cruz’s sister, former CNN.com news anchor Veronica De La Cruz, began a fundraising campaign on her website. The campaign is as much to raise money for Eric as it is to raise awareness of Nevada’s limited transplant opportunities, and to petition Senator Harry Reid and other Congress members for improved legislation.
Link to story. Link to donation information. -via reddit
Did Crazy Cavemen Make Those Cave Drawings?

Photos: otisarchives2 (left), modcult (right)
Are cave paintings signs of intelligence of ancient cave dwellers or are they just scribbles of crazy cavemen?
Take a look at the two photos above. The one to the left is a painting made by a patient at St. Elizabeth’s hospital. The patient had a case of dementia praecox (eventually classified as schizophrenia) and used a pin or fingernail to scratch paint from the wall, creating pictures symbolizing past events in the patient’s life and represent a mild state of mental regression.
Jeb of Modcult made this intriguing observation:
You know, everyone assumes cave paintings were made for some sort of vaunted religious or technical purpose, but maybe in olden times they just sent their crazy people into a cave. I mean, that’s basically what we do now.
Link - via Cliff Pickover’s Reality Carnival
Why Does My Body Do That?
Yawns? Hiccups? Goosebumps? Shivers? They all happen for a reason. Kimberly Fusaro of Woman’s Day spoke with Eric Plasker, author of The 100 Year Lifestyle to find out why our bodies do peculiar things. Take, for example, hiccups:
If you’ve frequently got a case of the hiccups, try slowing down when you eat and drink, suggests Dr. Plasker. Doing either too quickly causes your stomach to swell; this irritates your diaphragm, which contracts and causes hiccups. You may also get hiccups in emotional situations or if your body experiences a sudden temperature change. In both of these cases, the hiccups are a result of a glitch in your nerve pathways, which is why a sudden scare—which might shake up and reset your nerves—can sometimes end an episode.
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by ahammel.
Mamma Mia! Girl in Coma Woke Up Singing ABBA Song
I’ve always liked ABBA, and now I like ‘em even more because apparently their music can miraculously awaken someone from a coma!
Here’s the story of how 3-year-old Layla Towsey woke up from a meningitis coma, singing Mamma Mia:
Ms Towsey [...] , said: "Before they put her in the ambulance we were told to give her a kiss goodbye - it was an awful moment."
Layla was also diagnosed with meningococcal septicaemia and the family prepared themselves for the worst as she lay in intensive care.
Ms Towsey said: "But on the Sunday morning I could hear her singing Mamma Mia quietly. I couldn’t believe it.
"I knew immediately she was going to be OK."
Tingling Thigh Syndrome
If you are one who is willing to suffer for fashion, you might have a pair or two of the stylish “skinny jeans”. If so, you need to know about meralgia paresthetica, or “tingling thigh syndrome.” It feels as if your legs have gone to sleep, or it may cause a burning or tingling sensation. The syndrome is caused by pressure on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.
“The nerve, in some people, is susceptible to compression,” says Dr. John England, a New Orleans neurologist and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. The femoral cutaneous nerve, he explains, runs from the outside of the pelvis and through the thigh. “It is a pure sensory nerve — it doesn’t go to muscles or provide strength. Anything that is tight around there could potentially compress the nerve that goes there.”
The situation is exacerbated if you are also wearing high heels. It’s almost always a temporary condition. Just remove the jeans and the nerve will regenerate. Link -via Buzzfeed
Big Pharma Loves You: Free Viagra for the Unemployed!
Don’t ever say that Big Pharma doesn’t care about you … Pfizer is offering free Viagra (and other drugs) to Americans who have lost their job:
Pfizer Inc. said Thursday it will give away more than 70 of its most widely prescribed drugs, including Lipitor and Viagra, for up to a year to people who have lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking the drug for three months or more. The announcement comes as the unemployment rate topped 8.9 percent in April.
Pfizer stands to benefit, too _ by keeping its customers, and with a tax write-off that will cover much of the cost of the donations. The move also buys the world’s largest drugmaker some good will as Washington looks to overhaul the health care system.
Imaginary Gastric Band Helps Woman to Lose Weight
A gastric band (the LAP-Band) is a restrictive band placed around the patient’s stomach that gives the sensation of a full stomach after eating smaller portions of food, thus letting the patient eat less and lose weight without going hungry.
But fitting the band requires surgery, with potential side effects - so here’s a novel idea: making obese patients believe that they have an "imaginary" gastric band through hypnosis!
A therapist convinced Marion Corns, 35, she had had surgery to fit the band by talking her through the procedure while in a trance.
Hospital smells were even pumped into the room to boost the effect.
Housewife Marion, who has slimmed from 15st 6lb to 11st 7lb, said: “Bizarrely I can even ‘remember’ being wheeled into theatre, the clink of the surgeon’s knife and smell of the anaesthetic.”
She spent £780 on five sessions with a therapist at the Elite Clinic in Marbella after her weight ballooned despite trying numerous diet aids.
Afterwards Marion felt her stomach had tightened and she was full up on just a small portion of food.
Personal Trainer’s New Year’s Resolution: Get Fat!
Most people’s New Year’s resolutions usually involve losing weight, but Australian underwear model and personal trainer Paul "PJ" James’s was the exact opposite: he wanted to become fat to better understand his obese gym clients!
Matt Johnston of the Herald Sun has the story:
PJ, 32, has already gone from 80kg to 100kg since making his New Year resolution to boost his flab.
"I have always found it easy to tell clients what to do to lose weight, but it’s hard to tell where a client is coming from and how they are feeling," he said.
"There are health risks, I won’t shy away from that. But I’m trying to do it as responsibly as possible, with regular blood pressure and health checks."
He said his body had tried to reject the fat at first, but he had worked hard to make sure he stacked on the kilos, and was now starting to notice people looking at him differently.
"Especially when I’m trying to train clients and they are doing sit-ups and I’m standing there with a massive gut," he said.
"My gut is pretty big. That’s where most of the weight seems to be going."
Link (Photo: Rebecca Michael) | More pics at Australia-Bodybuilding Blog
Doctor Uses Household Drill on Boy’s Head
12-year-old Nicholas Rossi fell off his bike in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia. His parents rushed him to the local hospital, where Dr. Rob Carson saw the child’s brain was bleeding. The hospital did not have the equipment for brain surgery, so he ordered a drill from the maintenance department in order to open the skull and relieve the pressure.
Michael Rossi says his son would have died if Dr Carson had not acted quickly.
“He came out and he saw us and he said he’s only got one shot at it, and one shot only,” he said. “[He said] ‘I’m going to drill into Nick’s head and try and relieve the pressure’.”
“And he said if we can relieve the pressure he’s going to reach Melbourne via air ambulance in a lot better shape than if we don’t try something.
“Dr Carson told me all he can remember saying is, ‘Get the Black and Decker’.”
Carson consulted with Melbourne neurosurgeon David Wallace by phone, who talked him through the procedure. Rossi was up and walking around within a couple of days, and has since made a full recovery. Link
Ancient Mesoamerican Bling!

(image credit: José C. Jiménez López)
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.
Nose Too Cold for Avian Flu
While everyone was talking about the swine flu, researchers at the University of North Carolina have found the reason why its far-scarier cousins, the avian flu strains, didn’t become a full-blown pandemic. Turns out, we have our cold noses to thank:
All and all, 248 humans have died from the H5N1 according to WHO data as of January 2009. H5N1, as a strain, infects more species than any previously known flu virus, is deadlier than previous strains, and continues to evolve becoming both more widespread and more deadly. But even still, fears of a pandemic have yet to be realized. Now, researchers might have found the reason: our noses are too cold for the Avian flu. [...]
The difference in temperature, internally, between a human and a bird isn’t all that different - people maintain an internal temperature of about 37 degrees celcius, whereas birds stay a little warmer, around 40 degrees celcius. Researchers from the University of North Carolina wanted to know how these temperature differences might affect avian influenza viruses. They took a avian virus strain, H4N6, and human flu H3N2, and tried to infect human airway epithelial cells - the cells that line our noses and lungs. Both, they found, could infect and replicate quite quickly human airway epthelial cells at 37 degrees celcius, though the avian ones were a little slower in general than the human ones. But when the temperature was dropped to that of our noses - a bit cooler 32 degrees celcius - the avian virus replication slowed to a snail’s pace, 3-5 log units below the human virus’ speed. They tried a different avian strain - H5N3 - and found the same results. So they tried the deadly virus itself, H5N1 isolated from a dead person, and even it fared poorly. It seems that something about avian flu viruses simply can’t function right in cooler temperatures.
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by mattphunkadellic.
Cheeri-Uh-Ohs: FDA Said Cheerios is an Unapproved Drug
Did you eat your Cheerios this morning? You may have just inadvertently taken an unapproved drug. Or so says the FDA, who has just sent a warning letter to General Mills, the maker of the cereal:
In a warning letter sent to the chairman of General Mills (maker of the beloved breakfast classic) and posted on the agency’s website, the FDA says:
"Based on claims made on your product’s label, we have determined that your Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease."
The agency takes special issue with these claims:
* "you can Lower Your Cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks."
* "Did you know that in just 6 weeks Cheerios can reduce bad cholesterol by an average of 4 percent? Cheerios is … clinically proven to lower cholesterol. A clinical study showed that eating two 1 1/2 cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol."
Vintage Birth Control

Photo: wackystuff
How did people practice birth control back in the days? Here’s a tongue-in-cheek postcard c. 1907 that illustrates one such method.
More retro-goodness at Jeffrey Errick’s 100 most interesting images at Flickr: Link
Using Laser to Improve Concentration
I’m a big foe of multitasking: I find that I can’t concentrate and actually get less things done when I try to do multiple things at once (i.e. parallel processing) rather than just doing ‘em in series. Perhaps I’m old fashioned that way, but science appears to be on my side.
Here’s a very interesting article by John Tierney of The New York Times about the science of concentration and how it may be possible in the future to have a gadget that actually boosts your concentration by using lasers:
“It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial,” said Dr. Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. “If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.”
Now that neuroscientists have identified the brain’s synchronizing mechanism, they’ve started work on therapies to strengthen attention. In the current issue of Nature, researchers from M.I.T., Penn and Stanford report that they directly induced gamma waves in mice by shining pulses of laser light through tiny optical fibers onto genetically engineered neurons. In the current issue of Neuron, Dr. Desimone and colleagues report progress in using this “optogenetic” technique in monkeys.
Ultimately, Dr. Desimone said, it may be possible to improve your attention by using pulses of light to directly synchronize your neurons, a form of direct therapy that could help people with schizophrenia and attention-deficit problems (and might have fewer side effects than drugs). If it could be done with low-wavelength light that penetrates the skull, you could simply put on (or take off) a tiny wirelessly controlled device that would be a bit like a hearing aid.
Link (Photo from the always entertaining I Can Has Cheezburger)
Enlarged Amygdala: The Cause of Autism?
Scientists are one step closer to finding the cause for autism. In a new study, Joseph Piven of University of North Carolina and colleagues found that children with autism have enlarged area of the brain called the amygdala:
"We believe that children with autism have normal-sized brains at birth but at some point, in the latter part of the first year of life, it [the amygdala] begins to grow in kids with autism. And this study gives us insight inside the underlying brain mechanism so we can design more rational interventions," said lead study author Dr. Joseph Piven.
A normal-sized amygdala helps a person process faces and emotions, behavior commonly known as joint attention.
"When you see a face, you scan it, identify if it’s friend or foe and make a decision about whether to move forward or avoid it," said Dr. Barry Kosofsky, chief of neurology at Cornell Medical Center, who was not affiliated with the study.
UNC researchers conducted diagnostic assessments, in addition to the MRI scans, to monitor the children’s behavior. They found toddlers with a large amygdala also had joint attention problems.
Man Bobbitized in Car Accident
Sin Chew Daily (coincidence? I. Don’t. Think. So) and China Press reported a bizarre car accident that led to a man being Bobbitized in Singapore:
The daily reported that the incident occurred in a Singapore park where the couple met after work. To make matters worse for the woman, her husband had sent a private investigator to spy on her after suspecting that she was being unfaithful. The investigator said he had followed the woman and her boss to the park.
“On reaching the park, they did not alight from the car. Not long after, the car started to shake violently. After the car was hit by the van, there was a loud scream from the woman whose mouth was covered with blood,” he said. The woman later followed her lover to the hospital with part of the sexual organ.
America’s First Face Transplant Patient Hopes Her Story Teaches People Not To Judge
Connie Culp of Ohio lost the middle part of her face in the fall of 2004, when her husband shot her and then himself. He survived with minor injuries and was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
Connie was left with a devastating and traumatic injury to the mid section of her face. She lost an eye, her nose, her upper jaw and lip, palate, and lower eyelids. She couldn’t eat solid food, smell, or taste, and could only breathe through a hole in her neck.
The Dec. 9 operation, considered the most complex face transplant to date, lasted nearly 23 hours. After doctors removed scar tissue, bone grafts, and metal from her previous surgeries, Culp received 80 percent of the face and underlying tissue of an organ donor.
Culp was released from the Clinic on Feb. 5th. Her name, age, and type of injury had been withheld to protect her privacy.
She spoke to the media briefly for the first time Tuesday at a news conference held at the Intercontinental Hotel on the Clinic campus.
Culp, who had been taunted and called names because of her appearance, asked that everyone think twice about judging people who look differently.
“When somebody has a disfigurement or doesn’t look as pretty as you, don’t judge them,” she said. “You never know what happened to them and you never know what might happen to you . . . . it might all be taken away.”
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
Farmers Fearful Swine Flu Will Infect Pigs
Forget people! The real concern for farmers is not that humans get swine flu from pigs … it’s the other way around!
Humans have it. Pigs don’t. At least not yet, and U.S. pork producers are doing everything they can to make sure that the new H1N1 virus, known around the world as the "swine flu," stays out of their herds.
"That is the biggest concern, that your herd could somehow contract this illness from an infected person," said Kansas hog farmer Ron Suther, who is banning visitors from his sow barns and requiring maintenance workers, delivery men and other strangers to report on recent travels and any illness before they step foot on his property.
"If a person is sick, we don’t want you coming anywhere on the farm," Suther said.
Previously on Neatorama:
- Scientists: Swine Flu Milder Than Run-Of-The-Mill Winter Flu
- Swine Flu: Bacon’s Revenge
- What is Swine Flu? How Does an Animal Disease Spread to a Human Host?
- 5 Deadliest Pandemics in History
Pied Piper Cheats Death
Andy Mackie of Washington state had undergone nine heart operations and was taking 15 different drugs when he decided to quit. He gave up the medicine and started using the money he saved to give away harmonicas and music lessons to local kids. Mackie figured it would be a gift before he died.
“I really thought it was the last thing I could ever do,” he says.
And when he didn’t die the next month, he bought a few hundred more.
Harmonicas in hand, he explains, “I just started going from school to school.”
It’s now 11 years and 13,000 harmonicas later.
The now 70-year-old Mackie also makes and buys other musical instruments for interested children, and arranges for his older students to give lessons to younger kids.
Mackie says, “I tell them music is a gift, you give it away - you give it away and you get to keep it forever.”
Link -via Metafilter
(image credit: CBS)
Drinking Wine Adds 5 Years to Your Life, Beer 2.5 Years
From Bloomberg News:
Half a glass of wine a day may add five years to your life, a new study suggests. Drink beer, and you’ll live only 2 1/2 years longer.
Dutch researchers followed 1,373 men for more than four decades, noting their eating and drinking habits. Men who had about 20 grams of alcohol daily — equivalent to a half a glass of wine — had 2 1/2 years added to their life expectancy at age 50, compared with men who didn’t drink at all, according to the research published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Men who consumed only wine had twice as much added longevity.
Your assignment: in the comments, devise rules for a Neatorama-themed drinking game.
Image via flickr user rpeschetz








