6 medical curiosities that are hard to believe
Miscellaneous / / April 03, 2023
We will find out how moldy melon saved humanity and whether it is possible to grow peas in your own body.
1. One lady had 27 contact lenses in her eye
In 2017, a 67-year-old woman suffering from cataracts was admitted to Solihull Hospital in the UK. At least that's what everyone thought. Eye surgeons undertook to help her and discoveredDoctors find 27 contact lenses in woman's eye / CNNthat cataracts are actually contact lenses stuck together in one disgusting lump.
For 35 years, the woman wore lenses in her right eye - she had a weaker left one. And sometimes she could not remove the lens. She came to the conclusion that she herself fell out, and calmly lay down sleepand put in a new one the next morning.
It is not known how much they accumulated in her eye, but in the end the patient thundered into the hospital. 27 stuck contact lenses were removed from her, and after that, the lady's vision immediately returned to normal.
2. Peas grow in Massachusetts man's lung
In 2010 to the Massachusetts State Hospital deliveredPea plant grows inside man's lung / BBC News 75-year-old Ron Sveden with suspected emphysema and a collapsed lung. They began to operate on the man and found in his lung a pea sprout about 1.25 cm long.
As it turned out, one day, while eating, a pea hit Sveden in the wrong throat, and then into the respiratory tract and lung. She grew up there.
Of course, to a full-fledged plant peas I couldn't grow in my lung: it's a bit dark there, photosynthesis won't work. But he managed to develop enough to send the unfortunate man to the hospital. One more phobia.
3. The Italian sneezed so hard that a bullet popped out of his head
Once an Italian named Darko Sangermano strolledItalian man shot in head sneezes out bullet / NBCnews with his girlfriend in the evening Naples on New Year's Eve. And the inhabitants of this city love not only to launch fireworks, but also to shoot from any weapon that comes to hand, because there is no good holiday without noise.
In general, it is not known who fired that unsuccessful shot, but only a .22-caliber bullet flew right into Darko's temple, went past the eye socket and got stuck in the nasal passage.
But the wound was not fatal.
Bleeding Sangermano was taken to the hospital and there they began to prepare for an operation to remove the bullet. But Darko's body apparently decided helpItalian man shot in head sneezes out bullet / NBCnews to doctors: the patient suddenly sneezed so hard that the bullet lodged in the head flew out of the nose.
Surgeons operated on Darko, removing bone fragments from the wound, and he soon returned to his hometown of Turin. His vision was restored, despite the fact that the bullet had passed very close to eyeball.
4. Patients at South Korean plastic surgery clinics have problems at the border
In China and Japan, very strong developedHow South Korean Plastic Surgeons Make Passport Photos Worthless / Kotaku medical tourism. Residents of these countries often travel to neighboring South Korea when they want to do plastic surgery, - there it is cheaper and there are fewer delays.
Medical tourists visit the country without any problems and fulfill their plans. Difficulties begin when they try to return to their homeland.
The fact is that passport control officers can notHow South Korean Plastic Surgeons Make Passport Photos Worthless / Kotaku match their faces with the photos in the databases, and the poor fellows are detained at the border. The problem is so widespread that Korean plastic surgery clinics even began to issue special certificates for the immigration service so that their patients do not have difficulties with returning home.
5. One Venezuelan was woken up by his own autopsy in the morgue
In 2007, a 33-year-old Venezuelan named Carlos Camejo was in a car accident. Arriving doctors could not do anything and pronounced him dead. Deceased moved"Dead" man wakes up under autopsy knife / Reuters to the morgue, where the medical examiner began the autopsy.
When the pathologist's scalpel cut open Kameho's face, he suddenly came to his senses from unbearable pain. Doctors just hurried with the delivery to the morgue, it happens.
The patient got out into the corridor and frightened his inconsolable wife there, who was called to identify him. Fortunately, everything ended well. As a memento, the Venezuelan was left with a large scar on his chin.
6. Humanity owes penicillin to a melon found by accident
Penicillin is a well-known antimicrobial drug. Now it is synthesized artificially, and in the past it was borrowed from fungi of the genus Penicillium.
If you ask about the origin of penicillin to a person who knows a little bit about the history of medicine, he will most likely answer: this is the invention of Alexander Fleming, a Scottish microbiologist. But there are a couple of nuances here.
Fleming found penicillin accidentallyMoldy Mary and the Cantaloupe / History of Medicine. He left a sample with staphylococcus in an unhermetically sealed container, mold and kill the bacteria. The microbiologist took note of this and was able to extract a small amount of penicillin from her, which was safe for humans.
But Fleming's discovery did not revolutionize medicine: the mold strain he discovered produced too little of the substance. It was simply not enough to cure even one patient.
And only 15 years later, Mary Hunt, an employee of the Northern Regional Research Laboratory of Illinois, found a mold strain capable of producing more penicillin. And it happened by accident.
In 1943 a woman boughtMoldy Mary and the Cantaloupe / History of Medicine moldy melon on the market and decided to explore it for the sake of interest. She found a strain of Penicillium chrysogenum that produced 200 times more penicillin than Fleming's Penicillium notatum. We use it and its derivatives to this day.
So humanity received a cure for many harmful diseases. microbes thanks to a melon accidentally forgotten on the market. Mary Hunt, by the way, did not receive any special awards for this discovery: women in science were not much favored then.
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