Muttering into the void.
Kent sends a link to an article about a surgical team in Vancouver:
A team of Canadian surgeons got a shock when the patient they were operating on began shedding dark greenish-black blood, the Lancet reports.
The patient had been taking large doses of sumatriptan – 200 milligrams a day.
This had caused a rare condition called sulfhaemoglobinaemia, where sulphur is incorporated into the oxygen-carrying compound haemoglobin in red blood cells.
Ambulance Driver speculates about Jesus’ career as an EMT:
Personally, I think Jesus was the first EMT. Case in point:
“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” – Matthew 4:23
Note that it says nothing about people bringing the sick to Jesus. Jesus went out among the people, healing the sick. Since biblical historians pretty much agree that Jesus was a carpenter, not a doctor making house calls, I’d posit that EMS was his part-time, volunteer gig. Aside from being the bartender and caterer that everyone wanted for their wedding, that is.
Plus, Jesus had the first field resuscitation. Although his response time sucked, he obviously had the medic chops to get the save, even with a 48 hour down time for the patient in question – all before the invention of CPR or defibrillators, no less.
I’ve been meaning to post since last week, but only now got around to it. A few things:
Enjoyed Vancouver Opera’s Tosca on the weekend. The cast was uniformly excellent.
My brother has just moved to St. Maarten to go to med school.
The New Horizons spacecraft just did a gravity-assist by Jupiter, and sent back some spectacular images:
So we caught about three-quarters of Tim Minear’s new show Drive last night. Despite the presence of Mal Reynolds, it was just too unremittingly cruel for us.