On the road again

 

My wife and I are heading south for the winter to the Gulf of Mexico for a week lazing in the sun.  We've both been far too busy for the past several months, me with medical issues and her with being the the primary technical adviser to her employer's support staff.  We need breathing room, and space to unwind.

I'll post to this blog occasionally, as and when I feel the urge, but I don't want to commit to daily posts.  I really do need time to relax.  For the same reason, I'll only moderate comments at irregular intervals, so if you comment and it doesn't appear soon, please be patient.  Amuse yourselves with the bloggers listed in my sidebar until I'm back in harness.  Regular blogging should resume on Monday, October 12th.

I'll leave you with these encouraging thoughts from Rat.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the comic's Web page.

Sadly, no gin for me.  I'm driving!

Peter

Sadly, it takes war to spur improvements in emergency medical care

 

During my military service four to five decades ago, our medical training was pretty basic.  You could call it slightly more advanced first aid, if you like.  There were none of the techniques, equipment and medicines that emergency medicine offers today.  Pretty much all a grunt in the field could do was try to stop the bleeding, then get the injured person to a combat medic (if one was available - they weren't always around).  Anything more required evacuation to a forward aid station, which might be dozens or scores of miles away, and often could only be reached by vehicles bouncing around dirt trails or even through the bush.  It could be a nightmare experience for the wounded soldier, often causing more pain and suffering than the original injury.  (Allow me to assure you, I know this from personal experience!)

I was reminded of that by an interesting article at Strategy Page, looking at how, most recently, the Ukraine war has brought a new perspective to battlefield medicine, and examining some of the new technology and techniques that have evolved in recent decades.  Here are a couple of excerpts.

When Russia invaded in 2022, one of the many shortages was blood for transfusions to wounded soldiers and civilians. Using the slogan, “Your blood can fight too”, Ukraine made it easier to donate and converted blood collection from local hospitals and regional networks to a unified national network. Donation centers were prepared to run 24 hours a day when needed, accepting donations around the clock if the emergency lasted. Ukraine created an Operational Headquarters to monitor and coordinate nationwide blood collection and distribution activities. This conversion to a national system came several decades after the United States made the move. In turn, the Ukrainian experience has much to teach America and other NATO nations.

Russia provides less frequent and effective medical care for its wounded soldiers; military and civilian leaders are appalled at how the Ukrainian efforts have substantially reduced the number of combat deaths. Prompt blood transfusions are a key part of this and one of several reasons that for every Ukrainian combat death there are eight or more Russian losses.

. . .

Now, new medical tech is coming in the form of band-aids or bandages for people with minor bleeding injuries like cuts or scrapes. Some people do not heal as quickly, and these minor injuries can take a long time to heal. The solution is self-monitoring polymer band-aids or bandages. This smart bandage tech has completed animal testing and now faces up to a decade of human tests and development of larger bandages before it is generally available.

This smart bandage is worn for a week or two until the chronic bleeding is healed. The smart bandage consists of two parts. The most obvious part appears to be a disposable Band-Aid or bandage containing biosensors, electrodes, and hydrogel with medications, along with a device that delivers low-level electrical stimulation to speed healing. The second component is a flexible, reusable electronic patch that monitors the healing process by tracking temperature, pH, and other factors, allowing a doctor or medical technician to monitor healing. Each year, millions of people have slow-healing wounds, and smart bandages are designed to speed healing.

The smart bandage builds on two decades of major advances in emergency and combat medicine. These new technologies and procedures led to a reduction in combat deaths by more than half since 2003.

. . .

... since September 11, 2001, over two million American troops went off to war and about two percent of them were killed or wounded. Only 12 percent of the 57,000 combat zone wounds were fatal, the lowest percentage in military history. This was largely due to major improvements in dealing with rapid blood loss from a major artery being severed and the increased speed with which complex medical care could be delivered to wounded troops. New medical technologies also made it possible to detect injuries (like brain trauma) that, in the past, were very difficult to detect and treat.

There's more at the link.  Interesting and recommended reading.

If you'd told us, way back when, that "smart bandages" would be a thing, we'd have accused you of drinking entirely too much of the field hospital's rubbing alcohol, probably using it to wash down morphine tablets!  For the sake of today's soldiers, sailors and airmen - not to mention civilian EMT's and paramedics and their patients - I can only hope they perfect this new technology as quickly as possible.

I guess being wounded in combat kinda changes one's perspective on the importance of military medical care in particular, and general emergency medical care as well.  When one's lying there, not knowing whether it's safe to close one's eyes because one can't be at all sure of being able to open them again . . . it re-orders one's priorities, to put it mildly.

Peter

The Pachyderm Prescription?

 

The title of this post was suggested by this news report from Kenya.  It might make a good title for a novel, who knows?

A new study suggests that adult elephants prepare concoctions of plants to administer to their young as medicine.

The finding is based on observations of Mount Elgon's cave elephants in western Kenya by local indigenous people who spent more than 20 years monitoring their routines.

According to their accounts, the elephant herds clustered around Elgon use at least 25 different plant species.

They reported that elephant mothers processed roots and leaves, combined it with their breast milk and administered it to calves, for apparent health benefit.

In one testimony, a wildlife scout described seeing elephants using a plant known as Angurweet, which is used locally as a remedy for ailments such as stomach ache, "as medicine to give to babies".

The scout described elephant mothers "removing the leaves and chewing it until smooth, along with the roots of some other trees".

He also recounted that he had seen mothers mix this plant material with their own milk. "They give it to the babies, who chew on it themselves and spit out the solids," the scout said.

The statements of the Sabaot tribal experts appear to demonstrate a level of sophisticated self-medication among the elephants, which are already renowned for going into caves to mine for salt to supplement their diet.

There's more at the link.

I'm fascinated, but not surprised, to learn of the pachyderm pharmacists.  Elephants are very intelligent indeed, probably at least as much as a pre-teen child, and (judging by some of the teens I've met) possibly even higher on the scale.  I've never heard of them actively medicating their offspring as described in the report, but that they'd develop such knowledge and abilities doesn't surprise me.

Baby and junior elephants are just about the cutest things you can imagine.  Back in the day, Skukuza (the administrative center of the Kruger National Park in South Africa) housed a center for the care and rearing of animals orphaned after the death of their mothers.  This included several baby elephants at the time I visited it.  I was invited by a ranger I knew to join them at feeding time.  That involved filling a two-liter soda bottle with their concentrated milk ration, then applying an outsize rubber teat to it.  The elephants would be waiting impatiently for their food, dancing from foot to foot and being very noisy about it.  I got to hold the bottle for a six-week-old mtoto, who slurped it down with great enthusiasm.  I turned around to put the bottle back on the table, only to be rammed in the small of my back by what felt like a freight train.  I picked myself painfully off the ground and turned around, to be greeted by a juvenile elephant dancing from foot to foot and tootling at me in a way that freely translated as, "Gee, that was fun!  Let's do it again!"  When young elephants want to play, they want to play, and they won't take "No!" for an answer . . .

Of course, once they're grown, they're much less frolic-y and a darn sight more dangerous, particularly because they're intelligent enough to learn about threats and deal with them.  In Africa, they've grown accustomed to poachers using Soviet-made AK-47 rifles, with their distinctive "banana" magazines;  and when they see anyone carrying that shape, they'll often charge them at once and do their best to trample them into the mud before they can take aim and shoot.  (That's why South African game rangers on the Mozambique border carry - or used to carry, when I was still there - FN FAL rifles with a shorter, straight magazine, which didn't resemble the AK.  They lived longer that way!)

I love elephants.  They're majestic creatures, and dominate any location where they're found.  Forget that business about lions being the "king of the beasts".  When a herd of elephants arrive, the lions get out of the way.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 330

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

The British group Uriah Heep are regarded as one of the original hard rock/folk rock groups from the 1970's.  One of their early hits was "Lady In Black" from their 1971 album "Salisbury".

The group went on to record many more albums, but "Lady In Black" remained one of their best-known and most-loved songs.  It's been recorded by many groups, straying into many different genres.  I thought it might be fun to play a few this morning, for those interested in such things.

Here's a 2004 version, a collaboration between Uriah Heep members Mick Box and Bernie Shaw and the Romanian group Iris.  The joint version is titled "Doamna in negru".  The lyrics are bilingual, in Romanian and English.

Also in 2004, Spanish folk metal group Mägo de Oz (a translation of "Wizard of Oz") recorded this version, with Spanish lyrics.

In 2006 Finnish folk metal group Ensiferum recorded their somewhat heavy-metal version.

Later that same year, German band Gregorian released a medieval-mystical-Gregorian-chant melange of the song, which is rather attractive (and perhaps the truest of all cover versions to the theme and mood of the lyrics).

There are many more versions of the song out there.

Peter