As soon as he stuck the needle into the newborn baby’s heel, Dr. Yashuhiro Indo knew something was wrong. “I was thinking out loud, why does this baby not cry?’” said Dr. Indo, a pediatrician and molecular geneticist from Kumamoto University. There exists a small group of people who, like this baby, have never felt […]

Abstract Trimethylaminuria, better known as fish odor syndrome, is a psychologically disabling condition in which a patient emits a foul odor, which resembles that of rotting fish. The disorder is most commonly caused by an inherited deficiency in flavin monooxygenase 3, the vital enzyme for the metabolism of trimethylamine, which is the compound responsible for […]

A young Irishman is contemplating spending the next decade and a half in jail after he tried to sneak past Brazilian customs with a kilo of cocaine hidden in his guts. The 20-year-old holidaymaker, identified only as P.B.B., was stopped as he tried to board a flight back to Europe from Sao Paolo’s Congonhas airport. […]

James Christopher Harrison (born 27 December 1936), OAM, also known as the Man with the Golden Arm, is a blood plasma donor from Australia whose unusual plasma composition has been used to make a treatment for Rhesus disease. He has made over 1000 donations throughout his lifetime, and these donations are estimated to have saved […]

The oldest surgical tool There is evidence that the surgical knife dates back as far back as the Mesolithic era, around 8000 BC. One of the oldest surgical procedures was trepanation or trepanning, the art of drilling a hole into the skull. Findings suggest that flint knives were crafted to perform this procedure, and it […]

Police have released a picture showing the devastating injuries a young woman suffered when she was in a crash. The victim, who has not been named, had her hips crushed because her feet were on the dashboard and not in the footwell. One of her hips was broken while the other was dislocated. The image […]

Abdominoplasty or “tummy tuck” is a cosmetic surgery procedure used to make the abdomenthinner and more firm. The surgery involves the removal of excess skin and fat from the middle and lower abdomen in order to tighten the muscle and fascia of the abdominal wall. This type of surgery is usually sought by patients with loose or sagging tissues after pregnancy or major weight loss. Abdominoplasty operations […]

In the fall of 1925, two medical students in Kirksville, Missouri, received a cadaver and a challenge. Their assignment: to dissect the body’s nervous system, beginning at the base of the brain and working downward, leaving the system in one continuous piece. Over the following year, the students — M.A. Schalck and L.P. Ramsdell — it […]

Did you know that the first total knee replacement took place in as early as 1861? 1861: Dr. Fergusson performed resection arthroplasty of knee for arthritis.  This was followed in 1863 by Dr. Verneil with interposition arthroplasty, which inserted foreign tissue (including capsule, skin, muscle, fat chromatized pig bladder) into the joint but this technique failed […]

A 69-year-old man presented with a 25-year history of gradual, asymptomatic thickening and wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face. The physical examination showed hyperkeratosis with accentuated ridging, multiple open comedones, and areas of nodular elastosis. Histopathological analysis showed an accumulation of elastolytic material in the dermis and the formation of […]

Heterotopic heart transplantation (HHT) is a surgical procedure that allows the graft to be connected to the native heart in a parallel fashion to provide a kind of biological biventricular support. Performed first in a human being by Barnard in 1974, this surgical technique was a useful approach during the precyclosporin era as it reduced […]

This scanning electron micrograph shows a human spermatozoon contacting a hamster egg (×13,200). The ability of a patient’s spermatozoa to penetrate hamster eggs is used in an assay to measure male fertility. In the assay, a number of hamster eggs are exposed to spermatozoa. The penetration of more than 10 to 25 percent of the […]

A 60-year-old man presented to clinic with concerns about the cosmetic results of previous surgery. During childhood he had had an alkali burn of the esophagus that resulted in complete esophageal stenosis. In 1962, when he was 7 years of age, an esophagogastric bypass was performed by means of subcutaneous colonic interposition that involved the […]

Amputation below the knee in the men’s operating theater at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, late eighteenth/early nineteenth century (artist unknown). A Petit’s screw tourniquet is in use, and the patient is held on a firm table in a semi-seated position by assistants, perhaps to promote fainting more readily. The surgeon adopts a tour de maître […]

If you visit the Gordon Museum at Guy’s Hospital in London, you’ll see a small bladder stone—no bigger than 3 centimetres across. Besides the fact that it has been sliced open to reveal concentric circles within, it is entirely unremarkable in appearance. Yet, this tiny stone was the source of enormous pain for 53-year-old Stephen […]