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IN THIS ISSUE

• Pat Moore describes another encounter with Chinese medicine
• Dalton Deedrick continues his story about African dentistry
• Jean Sterling comments on items in last week´s issue
• Anne Rahamut forwards a legal joke
• Pat sends a story about missing dentures
• Carol Hansen, Jean Sterling, Pat Moore, and Tom Kyle suggest sites

After reading Jean Sterling´s comment about the journalist in China who underwent an operation under the influence of acupuncture, Pat Moore decided to write another article about

CHINESE MEDICINE

There were a few days when my interpreter Chin had to help out as an interpreter at a three-day international conference being held in Chengdu, so I was on my own and decided to try going out alone during some time off. It was very frustrating as I could hear people laughing and talking, and where previously Chin had always told me whether they were chatting about the weather, politics, or joking, I realized it was the daily conversations of home that you really miss.

Mid-morning I stopped for something cool to drink and was amazed to hear English spoken behind me. I could not resist and went over to introduce myself and to inquire where they were from. They turned out to be a small group of medical people from Sweden and the UK who were in China to investigate why their extremely clean hospitals are often the target of "superbugs" but Chinese hospitals are not. Their patients sometimes arrived for simple operations or procedures and would come down with very serious infections and complications.

This was very curious because in the Chinese hospitals the relatives of the patients are allowed to visit, and to cook meals for their relative in the room, and due to the food and garbage, there are often many rats running around the halls and in the wards, but there are almost no cases of "super infections".

We enjoyed lunch together and I invited the group to join me the following week in a visit to a jade factory which Chin had arranged with the factory manager, as they might like to see something different. They then told me about a visit that had been arranged for them to inspect a nearby hospital that afternoon regarding their project and invited me to join them - and of course I accepted.

When we first arrived at the hospital, the administrator told us that after the tour there was going to be a surgery that he thought the group would enjoy, and said there would be enough time to watch it from the observation room above the operating room if they were interested. The patient was a young man of approximately 18 years who had been born with a minor heart problem and they were going to repair the damage under acupuncture.

It was amazing to watch as the scene was very quiet, calm and efficient, and instead of anesthesia they used acupuncture. The placement of the acupuncture needles took quite a while but there was no reaction from the patient as apparently he had been prepared for the procedure. He was awake during the operation, although his eyes were shielded to prevent his watching the surgery, and he seemed to be quite comfortable. At the completion of the operation he was wheeled back to his bed and apparently was going to be released in three days´ time.

This was fascinating to watch - especially for me as in the past I have experienced some very severe adverse reactions to anesthetics. After returning to Canada I was involved in a car accident and required back surgery, so I decided to take advantage of a combination of acupuncture, hypnosis and anesthetics. It was a great success and I had no nausea afterwards and felt well enough to go home after nine days instead of the three weeks that had been booked at the hospital.

I will describe the visit to the jade factory and also a cloisonné factory with the group from Sweden and the UK another time.

To be continued

Dalton Deedrick continues his story of his adventures as a volunteer dentist in

AN AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

Our clientele embraced the whole spectrum. We had bishops and sheiks, Arabs, missionaries from a dozen different churches, Masai with plaited hairdos, and barefoot cattle drovers from nearby tribes. Spears and bows and arrows were stood in the corner while the operation, almost always extractions, was completed. The nominal fee for almost any operation was ten shillings, about $1.50 Canadian at that time.

Practically all of the local merchants and tradespeople were East Indian, and many of them had bright red lips and dark teeth from chewing betel nut. I commented on this to a patient and he said, "I will bring you some to try." True to his word, he appeared next day with a large quid of the material, something like a crushed hazel nut in the middle, a mixture of lime over that, and a folded leaf to hold the concoction together. With his assurance that this was a normal charge, and quite sure it would do me no lasting harm, I popped it in and started to chew. Within seconds I had a flow of saliva which was running out of the corners of my mouth, and this great wad of gunk which I didn´t dare swallow. The sight of the cuspidor and the invocation "Tema Hapa" occurred simultaneously. The donor and Ephraim laughed their heads off. I never became addicted to betel.

My work wasn´t confined to the clinic at headquarters. From time to time one or two of the missionary ladies would undertake a country safari to one of the bush schools or churches within a 50-mile radius of Dodoma. I would be invited to go along with Ephraim, and all the portable stuff we could pack. The missionaries would assemble all the native women, and spend the afternoon talking to them about hygiene, nutrition, education, and simple gospel messages.

Meanwhile, I would have a kitchen chair set up under the nearest shady tree, and with Ephraim boiling instruments over a little propane burner for all he was worth, we´d start to check the school children. The teacher would sort them out, those reporting a sore tooth in one line, those without apparent problems in another. The "sore tooth" line had priority, and if a child obviously needed an extraction, he was given an anaesthetic injection and directed to line number three. When all our syringes had been used and were re- boiling, the children were brought forward in order for their extractions. They were excellent patients; never a qualm about the procedure, no histrionics, and with a remarkable tolerance for the odd time when the anaesthetic wasn´t all it should have been. Their fortitude on those occasions may have been partly because all of their schoolmates were standing as close as possible, entranced by the procedure. When a tooth was extracted, it was handed to the patient on a half sheet of Kleenex, the other half being folded into a little pad to bite on over the extraction site. Finally, the kid got the empty anaesthetic carpule, which made a good whistle. What could be more basic dentistry than that?

If we stayed late, the sudden tropical nightfall set the stage for the main event - for many, their first picture show. The mission had a slide projector with a 12-volt bulb, so we´d connect it to the Land Rover battery, and on a nearby whitewashed mud wall there would suddenly appear, for the first time in most of their lives, a bright image of a full-sized elephant. "Tembo," they´d murmur, and the picture would change and progress while the missionaries, in Swahili, would narrate a simple Bible story linked to the slide show. There wouldn´t be a whisper from the totally enthralled audience until the show was over.

There were missions of several denominations working in the area, but Catholic, Anglican, United, Lutheran or whatever, they all cooperated with each other. They had each other over for meals and fellowship, and each respected the others for what they were all trying to do. I felt that without the churches and their schools, the education system in all of East Africa would have been a shambles.

There were some interesting conundrums from time to time. A local chief had listened earnestly to one of the missionaries and had made his decision to embrace Christianity. Alas, he had four wives, none of whom he was prepared to give up. I was not around when that dilemma was solved - I think it would have had a Solomon scratching his head finding a solution for that one.

Jack, meanwhile, was sent upcountry about 50 miles to work in a government hospital, administered by the diocese. It was a 90-bed hospital with an average occupancy of about 120. It was a nursing- training school, but had no electricity in the wards, just kerosene lamps. The operating room had a large window close to the operating table, so all surgery was booked for daylight hours. There was a generator and a night light for surgery if it was urgently needed. A fully modern sterilizer and x-ray machine, donated by some organization, stood idle - not enough generator capacity, and the wrong voltage! With this kind of facility, the resident doctor, with Jack assisting, was doing amputations, caesarian sections, and abdominal surgery.

To be continued.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling comments on items in the last issue:

"Bill McNair forwards this challenging Alzheimer´s colour test:...."

It´s also a test in reading the directions! I got a zero the first time around.

"As if you weren´t feeling old enough already, Bruce Galway forwards the URL for a video of the world´s oldest still-performing showgirl."

Wow! She is an inspiration!

"Dick Monaghan challenges you to test your hand-eye co-ordination by clicking on the ball."

Where does he get these things? I couldn´t do it. Is it possible? [ED.: I never did succeed, but Jay got it four times.]

"Doris Dignard sends the URL for a video of a superlative dog trainer."

Sunset is an event in Key West. It´s a happening and a large crowd gathers on Mallory Pier to watch the sun go down and to see the people who put on little shows. I´ve seen a guy there who had CATS that he had trained to jump through a flaming hoop.

Anne Rahamut´s cousin, a lawyer, sent her this

BEST LAWYER STORY OF THE YEAR, DECADE, AND PROBABLY THE CENTURY.

Charlotte, North Carolina. A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued ... and WON!

(Stay with me now.)

Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated, nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire, and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars lost in the "fires".

NOW FOR THE BEST PART.

After the lawyer cashed the cheque, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!

With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

This is a true story and was the First Place winner in the Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

ED. NOTE: Unfortunately, according to Snopes, it is an urban legend. To read a song written about it, see http://arunaurl.com/36i1

Pat Moore sends this story of

THE SPARE DENTURES

A dinner speaker was in such a hurry to get to his engagement that when he arrived and sat down at the head table, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten his false teeth. Turning to the man next to him, he said, "I forgot my teeth."

The man said, "No problem."

With that, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of false teeth. "Try these," he said.

The speaker tried them. "Too loose," he said.

The man then said, "I have another pair... try these."

The speaker tried them and responded, "Too tight."

The man was not taken aback at all. He then said, "I have one more pair of false teeth ... try them."

The speaker said, "They fit perfectly."

With that he ate his meal and gave his address. After the dinner meeting was over, the speaker went over to thank the man who had helped him.

"I want to thank you for coming to my aid. Where is your office? I´ve been looking for a good dentist."

The man replied, "I´m not a dentist. I´m the local undertaker."

THIS WEEK´S SUGGESTED SITES

Carol Hansen sends this link to a song by a talented group of certified registered nurse anesthetists in Minnesota:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOrjcLJ2IE0&feature=related

Jean Sterling forwards a link to Jimmy Buffet singing "Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg-zwba7l5w

Pat Moore forwards this challenging site. The object of the game is to move the red block around without getting hit by the blue blocks or touching the black walls. If you can go longer than 18 seconds you are phenomenal. [ED. I got up to 10 seconds a couple of times, but no further.]

http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html

Tom Kyle suggests you brighten your weekend with a wee dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2mkzwIr6HU

From the City Farmer website, here is a blog from a couple of people in Bremerton, WA, who are urban farmers: http://www.startnow.org/local_food.html