Self-Help

In 1921, Pennsylvania surgeon Evan O’Neill Kane removed his own appendix. He wanted to show that a local anaesthetic would be adequate for some surgeries but wanted to be sure that a patient could tolerate the procedure. So on Feb. 15, propped up by pillows on an operating table, he cut into his own abdomen, using novocaine to dull the pain while a nurse held his head forward so that he could see the work.

“Just say that I am getting along all right,” he told the New York Times the following day. “I now know exactly how the patient feels when being operated upon under local treatment. … I have demonstrated the fact in my own case that a major operation can be performed by the use of a local anaesthesia without causing pain more severe than can be borne by the patient.”

He was 60 years old at the time. Nine years later he would repair his own hernia.

| Oddities

In a Word

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctica_wind_Mawson_Hurley.jpg

anemocracy
n. a government by the wind

Frank Hurley took the photo above during Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911. “The figure is actually leaning on a constant 100 miles per hour wind while picking ice for culinary purposes.”

| Language · Oddities

Good Point

The people of Delos were arguing before the Athenians the claims of their country,– a sacred island, they said, in which no one is ever born and no one is ever buried. ‘Then,’ asked Pausanias, ‘how can that be your country?’

— F.A. Paley, Greek Wit, 1888

| Puzzles

Thrills and Intrigue

In 2005, Chinese novelist Hu Wenliang offered 140,000 yuan ($16,900 U.S.) to the reader who could decipher his novel «?», which consists entirely of punctuation marks:

:?

:!

“‘……’”

(?)·«,»

;——

Hu claimed that the symbols represent a touching love story that took him a year to write, but he told the Beijing Daily Messenger that none of the 20 interpretations that readers had so far offered had satisfied him.

“I have my own answer, which is around 100 Chinese characters,” he said. “The interpretation should cover the description of characters and the plot of the story. I will reward someone who can guess 80 percent the hidden story correct.”

That was in July 2005. If anyone has offered a successful solution, I haven’t been able to discover it.

| Language · Literature

Clan Handled

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Baptiste_Greuze_-_The_Father%27s_Curse_-_The_Ungrateful_Son_-_WGA10661.jpg

“Why does one never hear of a blessing thundering down the years and pursuing a certain family while pouring the gifts of the gods into their laps?” — Lady Norah Ida Emily Noel Bentinck, My Wanderings and Memories, 1924

| Quotations

The “Polish Schindler”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eugene_(Eugeniusz)_Lazowski,_Poland.jpg

Physician Eugene Lazowski was practicing medicine in the Polish town of Rozwadów when he discovered that injecting healthy patients with dead bacteria could cause them to test positive for epidemic typhus without experiencing any symptoms.

Working secretly with his friend Stanislaw Matulewicz, Lazowski began injecting thousands of Poles in the surrounding villages, deliberately creating the appearance of an epidemic. Fearful of a contagious illness, the Nazis quarantined the affected villages rather than sending their residents on to concentration camps.

Lazowski’s efforts saved an estimated 8,000 men, women, and children who would otherwise have been sent to prisons, slave labor camps, or death camps. He survived the war and moved to the United States in 1958, where he taught medicine in Illinois.

“He’s why I became a doctor,” one of the spared villagers, Jan Hryniewiezki, told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2000. “He was a patriotic hero because he wasn’t afraid to do what he did during very bad times.”

“The basic duty of a physician is to preserve life,” Lazowski explained, “and this was a way of saving lives.”

| History · Hoaxes

Dread Sovereign

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Victoriatothrone.jpg

After-dinner conversation with the young Queen Victoria, 1838, from Lytton Strachey’s 1921 biography:

‘Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?’ asked the Queen. ‘No, Madam, I have not,’ replied Mr. Greville. ‘It was a fine day,’ continued the Queen. ‘Yes, Madam, a very fine day,’ said Mr. Greville. ‘It was rather cold, though,’ said the Queen. ‘It was rather cold, Madam,’ said Mr. Greville. ‘Your sister, Lady Frances Egerton, rides, I think, doesn’t she?’ said the Queen. ‘She does ride sometimes, Madam,’ said Mr. Greville. There was a pause, after which Mr. Greville ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to change the subject. ‘Has your Majesty been riding today?’ asked Mr. Greville. ‘Oh yes, a very long ride,’ answered the Queen with animation. ‘Has your Majesty got a nice horse?’ said Mr. Greville. ‘Oh, a very nice horse,’ said the Queen.

“It was over. Her Majesty gave a smile and an inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a profound bow, and the next conversation began with the next gentleman.”

| History · Society