Review: When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind I & II

Tonight on the Discovery Health channel I watched When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind, parts I and II.  Objects left in a patient after surgery is a major problem, as about 1,500 people in the U.S. alone learn first hand every year (source). There is even a national safety project devoted to preventing retained surgical objects, No Thing Left Behind, which details safety procedures such as "Sponge Accounting" (apparently two thirds of the objects left behind are sponges, called gossypiboma; the sponges are tiny little gauze things that look like tissue once they're soaked with blood).   These objects can cause severe complications down the road, including pain and infection, and when the body encapsulates the object in tissue, they can be mistaken for tumors.

Among the retained objects featured in the show were a retractor (a metal object about the size and shape of a ruler), sponges and gauze, a plastic tube (left shoved down a kid's throat!) and a 9-inch clamp.  In one case the object caused an infection by flesh-eating bacteria (which was cured by packing the wound with bleach-soaked gauze) and another caused gangrene of the ribs. Other common side effects were depression, PTSD, and painkiller addiction.

Overall, the show was pretty mediocre, with the sequel being slightly better than the first.  It was fairly informative-- it explained the procedure of counting surgical equipment before and after an operation, and showed a new way of using barcodes to do so.  It also gave a lot of good background information about the likelihood and risk factors for having a tool left behind.  But many of the cases ran into each other after the first twenty minutes.  I found myself wishing they featured more large objects, or else a wider variety of objects (which the second did, I suppose).  Even though sponges were the most common, and could cause just as terrible complications, they got a bit old to watch.  I would definitely still recommend it if nothing else was on, but I wish I'd watched Doctor Who instead.

Overall: 2.5/5 skulls

Phantom limb pain

A phantom limb is one of the more strangely horrifying side-effects of surgery.  A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated (or otherwise missing) limb/other appendage is still attached to one's body.  But often the phantom limb feels tense or painful.  What can you do about pain in a limb that isn't there?  What else can go wrong in that limb?

A woman who was born with only three fingers on her right hand, which was later amputated, found out in a strange way.  Well, something didn't go wrong, exactly.  It's more like something went freakishly right.  Her two missing fingers "grew back" on her phantom limb after the real one was amputated, which shows something about how our brain recognizes what we "should" have in/on our body.  Her new fingers came back shorter, but a mirror box was used to lengthen them.

The article did not mention any pain in her phantom hand.

Religion makes people do horrible things, pt. 2

Did you hear about the Islamic cult living underground in Kazan, Tatarstan (part of the Russian Federation)?  Some of the children had apparently never seen sunlight.  It makes you think of that Ray Bradbury story.  You know the one.  I'd like to add that Kazan is not some podunk little bizarre Russian village.  It's got over a million people, so likely it's bigger than where you are living now.  And it's a pretty normal city.  I know people from there, and people who have been there.  They are all normal, sunlight-loving people.  (Well, most of them are, anyway.)

Well, I guess some of the story was quite exaggerated, particularly the state of the cells.  However, they were without any sort of power, water, or central heat.  The follow-up articles do not address whether some children never saw sunlight, only that some rooms indeed had windows.  I consider the jury still out on this one-- I think the headline calling it a lie was a bit exaggerated itself.

Torture Week: Death by a Thousand Cuts

Today we travel to ancient (and not-so-ancient, up to the early 1900s in fact) China to learn about Língchí, also known as Slow Slicing or the Death by a Thousand Cuts.  This method was used as punishment for only the most heinous of crimes, like treason or patricide (both of which violated the traditional order of filial piety).  In this method of torture, the victim was restrained in public, then multiple small (and not so small-- fingers, limbs, and... other appendages were often cut off, and eyes were often put out first thing, to amp up the psychological terror) cuts were made, until finally the victim either was beheaded or got a knife to the heart and died.

From The Big Book of Pain

 

 

There is some controversy over just how horrible this method was, however.  According to my Big Book of Pain, there were symbols on the knives used indicating which body part was to be cut.  Either the victim's family bribed the executioner to choose the "heart" knife very quickly, or else the victim just hoped for it really hard.  But Wikipedia states that usually the victim was already dead before the slicing started.  The real punishment here was that being all cut up violated the aforementioned filial piety thing-- you didn't want to show up to the afterlife in pieces.  In addition, it states that opium was often given to the victim-- but there is no consensus over whether this was an act of mercy (I've heard things don't hurt as much on opium) or further torture (you would be less likely to pass out from shock).

Torture Week: Scavenger's Daughter

Today's torture device is the Scavenger's Daughter (also known as the Skevington's Daughter, or the Spanish A-frame), invented during the reign of Henry VIII (of course) by Sir Leonard Skeffington ("Scavenger" is thought to be a corruption of "Skeffington," as is "Skevington," because apparently people couldn't remember his actual name).  It is the opposite of the rack, in a way, as it compresses the body rather than stretching it.

Wikipedia

They were configured either as in the photo above, or in a more A-frame or triangular fashion.  The head went through the circular portion at the top, the hands went through the semi-circles where the A would be crossed, and the ankles went through at the bottom.  This caused the body to be crunched in a position where the knees would be forced against the chest and the thighs against the stomach.  It also kept the head bent downward.  This position caused the unfortunate person locked in one to bleed from the ears and nose (I'm guessing not right away, as I myself am able to press my knees to my chest without bleeding from my face).

If you consider yourself a torture aficionado (why the hell would you?), yet have not heard of this instrument, don't, well, torture yourself about it.  Documentation from the time suggests that it was rarely used.  You can see one for yourself on display at the Tower of London museum or the torture museum in Freiburg im Breisgau (where the above photo is from), if you happen to be in Europe.

Torture Week!!

So, in the vein of Discovery Channel's Shark Week, Horrible Things that Happen to People brings you Torture Week.  Or actually, more like Torture Fortnight, since I don't post every single day, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Torture Week."  Mm, Torture Week.

I'm starting off with a review of The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Throughout History,
by Daniel Diehl and Mark P. Donnelly.  (I got it at the Ren Faire.  There were multiple books on the topic, but this seemed like the best.)

The book is laid out really well.  It starts out with a chapter on the philosophy behind torture (ie, "why do people do it?"), then a couple chapters on torture throughout different ages in Europe, a chapter on torture in the rest of the world, an encyclopedia of torture (!!), and closes with a "what does it all mean" type of thing.  It's got beautiful glossy pictures, a couple on each page, and two sets pages of gorgeous color photos. It's well written, and really interesting.  I really can't recommend it enough for people like me (and likely people like you, if you are reading this).

A few small drawbacks: One, it doesn't touch on torture in the 20th century at all.  The authors state that it would take an entire other book, which may be true, but I want to read that other book!  Two, it's more than a bit Euro-centric.  True, they have a chapter devoted to torture around the world, but that's one chapter for all the rest of the world for all of time.  But I already knew a lot about torture in Europe, and I really would have liked to learned more about torture in Asia, and Africa, and in America prior to white people getting all up in everyone's business.  They did not mention anything about Native America. 

The last problem I had with it is a little nit-picky.  I will never get used to seeing "Magna Charta," even though Wikipedia says it's an acceptable spelling.  In addition, they often misspell "grisly" as "grizzly."  WTF, YOUR BOOK IS ABOUT TORTURE.  MAYBE YOU SHOULD LEARN TO SPELL "GRISLY" BEFORE YOU START WRITING IT.

So overall, I really recommend it.  Coming up, I am going to focus on some of the different torture methods mentioned in the book and some others from the 20th century.

Overall: 4/5 skulls

Review: Obsessed

A double review today, of shows brought to you by the fine folks at A&E. 

First up is, as I have briefly discussed already, Obsessed.  (Which is helpfully available on Netflix.)  They show is primarily, as you may have guessed, a look at people's lives who live with OCD and/or other serious anxiety issues.  Each episode features two people with different "obsessions."  It begins by showing their obsessions and/or compulsions and how the subjects live with them.  They are each given a psychologist and the show tracks the progress they make (or occasionally don't) over 12 or so weeks.  The episodes are pretty hit or miss.  They are often pretty same-y, following the same few compulsions (your basic OCD ones of cleanliness, counting, &c.).  But some are fairly interesting (by which I mean less common), including the afore-mentioned Chronic Skin Picking, and one woman who couldn't stop thinking about abused animals.  It's also a pretty blatant example of what I like to call "info-porn"-- documentary style shows that are pretending to be made for educational and informational purposes, but are really pure entertainment, giving the viewer something to gawk at.  (Like this blog. -Ed.)  But I justify watching it, and in a way its very presence, because they are paying for treatment for people who often obviously could not pay for it themselves.

Overall: 2.5/5 skulls