The Distracting Sunday Newness: 18/06/2023

 Suppose some dodgy Egyptian approaches you, Black and Decker in hand, and says I can cure that headache - just let me drill a hole in your head. You'd be looking around for the nearest house-brick for rub-down purposes and a pyramid to drop him into and seal up with quick-dry cement. But just suppose the same dodgy Egyptian approaches you wearing a bow tie and bearing an invoice for several thousand pounds for said hole-making. Seems the world has been beating a path to his door.

Professor Sam Eljamel and friend

 It’s the charisma and the power and the bow ties. 

Professor Eljamel, the former head of neurosurgery at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Bonny Scotland, cut holes in people's skulls, then stuck the bit back in with superglue.  Leann Sutherland underwent the procedure in 2011 to cure her migraines. She is one of a hundred former patients calling for an enquiry into the dodgy Egyptian. (In this context, Egyptian is a generic term. I haven't a clue where the Professor was born). Trepanation is the oldest surgical procedure for which there is archaeological evidence, dating back 7,000–10,000 years. The main pieces of archaeological evidence are in the forms of cave paintings and human remains. At one 8,000 year old burial site in France, 40 out of the 120 prehistoric skulls found had trepanation holes. It was always a difficult and dangerous operation - only 40% of people survived the procedure, as evidenced by bony regrowth surrounding the hole. Or not - if dead.

In medieval times, the procedure was used to let the madness and confined demons out. 

Detail from The Extraction of the Stone of Madness by Hieronymous Bosch c. 1488-1516. 

There remain some loony groups who enthusiastically take the Black and Decker to their own and their fellow cult-members' heads, believing it will increase insight and enhance mental power, wellbeing and induce a state of permanent euphoria, but I believe the medical term for that is a load of old bollocks, and can render you liable to prosecution: in 2000, two men from Cedar City, Utah, were prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license after they performed a trepanation on an English woman to treat her chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.

Trepanation remains a popular procedure for reducing pressure in the brain due to skull trauma and is now referred to as a craniotomy. It should only be performed after diagnostic imaging, including computed tomography  and magnetic resonance imagery to pinpoint the issues within the brain. The pre-operative imaging allows for accurate examination and evaluation. Unlike trepanation, the removed piece of skull is typically replaced as soon as possible. Our man Sam did not bother with all that - three surgeon colleagues in Dundee told the BBC that Sam  Eljamel discouraged the use of X-rays because he was so arrogant and because it saved him money. It is thought that as a result he operated in the wrong place on the spines of at least 70 patients - leaving many permanently disabled.

Leann Sutherland's extracted bone did not re-seal to her skull. She said: "The wound burst open and the brain fluid started to pour out the back of my neck." The next day her hospital bed was "soaked" with her spinal fluid. When she got up to use the bathroom she collapsed and said the fluid went all over the floor. A nurse put a wet floor warning sign on the area. Her mum had to chase Mr Eljamel down a corridor to get him to come and look at her - at which point she was rushed back into surgery.

NHS Tayside has consistently claimed it only knew about concerns from June 2013 and that they put Eljamel under supervision at that point - but an NHS whistleblower has told BBC Scotland that the health board knew as early as 2009 that there were serious concerns. The three surgeons who worked under Eljamel in Dundee all said he was a bully who was allowed to get away with harming patients, that there was a lack of accountability in the department and that  Eljamel was allowed to behave as if he were a "god" - partly because of the research funding he brought to the department. 

We really need to stop this idolisation of flawed men in bow ties. Leann should have said - you what? Cut a hole in my skull? Remove a piece of the bony protection of my self, my identity, my memory store, my bladder control ffs - naw, mate, you need a quick rubdown with a house brick and entombing in a mine shaft.

Why the bow tie? In order to prevent a long tie dabbling in wounds/pus/pee/faeces/semen, some brighter-than-most tied the two ends together in a pretty bow. Couldn't just leave it off, of course.

It was Dr Ignaz Semmelweis (July 1818 to August 1865), a Hungarian doctor and scientist, who discovered that doctors' dirty hands transmitted infection and that hand washing in chlorinated lime solutions would reduce mortality to below 2% in newly-delivered mothers, who were attended by doctors who had come from the dissecting room to the delivery room without washing their hands. This offended his colleagues, who mocked him and rejected his conclusions. The  Semmelweis reflex is a metaphor for human behaviours characterized by reflex-like rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs, or paradigms. It didn't end well for Dr. Semmelweis, who was incarcerated for lunacy by his erstwhile colleagues, beaten by the warders, which induced a sepsis in the wounds they made, from which he died.

Dr Nicholas Chapman, aged 55, from Taunton, seems not to subscribe to the Semmelweisian doctrine of hand washing. He told Gloucester Crown Court last week that he suffers from a medical condition that causes him to ejaculate when going to the toilet; he does not wash his hands after urinating and therefore he had semen on his hands when making a cup of coffee for a female friend and the semen found its way into the coffee, dirty fucking bastard. The Court rejected his explanation for the presence of his semen in the coffee made by this barista from hell, and convicted him of attempting to engage in sexual activity without consent. His victim had reported her suspicions that coffee made by Chapman was unlike that available at Starbucks and took a sample to Avon and Somerset Police, who tested the drink and found Chapman's semen in it. Sentencing will take place on the 6th July.

You can't make this stuff up. Just remember - the person most likely to kill you is your Doctor. Or commit peculiar sexual assaults upon you. Should you be offered a coffee, or, indeed, a trepanning, when next visiting your GP, just say no.

Ishmaelites may remember that mr ishmael wrote of Leicester Royal Infirmary with particular venom: here's an example:

 Leicester Royal Infirmary, in my experience, is a filthy, shambolic, polyglot, twelve-storey shithole which should be demolished; overrun by  dangerously useless foreign nurses and doctors who can't or won't speak English; a spell in that place would surely nourish one's inner Ukipper. I saw an oriental nurse, doing diabetic blood tests, whose actions could not but pass infection from one patient's bloodstream to that of the next patient; she wiped-off excess blood from a patient's thumb-prick not with a swab or a piece of cotton wool but with the thumb of her latex glove, repeating the process, wearing the same glove, with the next dozen patients, into each patient's bloodstream, thus,  passing the blood of the previous patient.  She should have been jailed. Fortunately - and sensibly - I always do my own blood tests in hospital and waved  the filthy bitch away.  In the same ward, another, young, student male nurse, spread sepsis in a uniquely thoughtful way - when he performed the blood tests he would carefully tape a little cotton wool to the test site, each time tearing the tape between his teeth.

Leicester Royal Infirmary, flagship NewLabour disease pit, and employer of mad ventriloquist McCann, has a mission statement which says: Doesn't matter if our incompetent actions result in your death as you would have died eventually anyway. Honest. Stanislav not invent. The government could display real vision by adapting this to any outbreak of plague.

The reason for this vitriol is that mr ishmael had the misfortune to be treated in Leicester Royal Infirmary for a severe infection of a diabetic ulcer at the base of his big toe. After the infection was brought under some control by the administration of intravenous antibiotics, the surgeon-doctor-bastard wanted to operate to remove dead and diseased tissue from the wound. I was with mr ishmael when the Important Surgeon's flunky brought the consent form to mr ishmael's bedside the night before the operation. The flunky explained that the procedure would be carried out under general anaesthetic, was called a debridement, which might include amputation of the big toe. mr ishmael told the flunky that he did not consent to the removal of his toe. Flunky protested that refusal  might necessitate mr ishmael be woken up mid operation to gain his consent.  "But I will not consent to my toe being amputated", he  stoutly responded, "Under Any Circumstances".  He struck out from the consent form the words: "debridement up to and including the removal of the great toe", and signed it. You know how this ends. He woke up after the operation, his foot swathed in bandages, his great toe removed and off to the incinerator.

We were in Leicester because we were en route home to Orkney after a holiday. The amputation of a big toe from a middle-aged unstable diabetic is not a trivial thing. It takes some recovery. It is not like those super-fit young Invictus-Games athletes. mr ishmael never wore shoes again - he had to wear those stupid surgical booties. When mr ishmael was home he reported the assault upon his person to the Leicester Police, who flew a couple of police officers to Orkney to interview him. Doubtless they fancied a bit of a holiday. They were hugely sympathetic,  telling mr ishmael that they had long wanted to get their hands on one of these arrogant bastards who fancied themselves above the law - well, face it, they usually are: (more cream in your coffee, Officer? God, NO.) They had their doubts about a successful prosecution, saying that the medical/surgical profession are rarely prosecuted, but, hey, let's have a go, here's the non-consent form, black and white evidence, and even if we can't get it into Court, we'll have 'im down the cells and put the frighteners on 'im. Here's mr ishmael on the conclusion of the matter: 

My last stint in an English hospital,  the Leicester Royal Infirmary, resulted in my getting Surgeon Brown arrested and interviewed under caution, although, of course, the CPS felt that a jury wouldn't convict a doctor, although I, given a chance,  would have made certain that they did, no matter; he'll never do that shit again, having had his collar felt.

Fucking Surgeon Brown said in his defence to the police: "well, it would have auto-amputated, anyway". (Translation - would have fallen off). The bastard got carried away - in there with his sharp little knife, cut-cutting way, happy days, patient anaesthetised up to fuck, snicker-snack and went galumphing back. 

Here's an interesting side bar with myself - you know I was in private practice as a hypnotherapist? The multiplicity of self constantly intrigues me. So, for example, who is it who pulls your hand away from the flame before your conscious mind is even aware of the danger? Who is it who stands up before your conscious mind decides to do so? The clever fellows with instruments have charted these responses in the brain (that precious thing held safe in its bony carapace until some surgeon-bastard breaches its integrity) long before the self that you call you has got around to any action. So, working with my clients under hypnosis has long convinced me that only your conscious mind is anaesthetised. Another part of you is perfectly aware of the assault perpetrated upon you under anaesthetic, feels every slice of the scalpel, hears the ribald jokes about your anatomy, your adipose tissue, your chances for survival. And that part of you is unprepared, frightened by being rendered paralysed, unable to fight back, not understanding the therapeutic intent of this surgical assault. Think of it as a child, or an adult dog. Competent, but limited. It is not their world. So the best preparation for surgery, if you really must go under the knife (don't even think about cosmetic surgery - it is only an income generator for the surgeon and his team and not remotely therapeutic), is to get yourself into your own peak of physical perfection - stop smoking, lose excess weight, exercise, stop drinking alcohol, drink water, get deep sleep, and have multiple coaching sessions with the part of yourself that will face the knife wide awake, hurting and scared. The pain of surgery is only postponed by anaesthesia. 

How do that? Well, alone. 

Take yourself into a trance state. You know that state well - you've been slipping into and out of it since the womb - some call it prayer, some meditation, some lost in a good book, or a film, or contemplation, or pre-sleep. And reassure that part of yourself that all will be well, that this is a good hurt that will help make you well, that the surgeons are skilful, purposeful and effective. The most effective mantra is: this is a small injury quickly healed.

That's enough crap about doctors.

So, Johnson has been fucked up the arse by Parliament. They've been queuing up, elbowing each other aside for their turn. Constantly amusing, the Tories, self-serving, self-aggrandising, motivated by the conviction that we may be fucking awful, but we're better than Labour, and God intends us to have dam' fine incomes. This Report, though, in all its tedious length, does seem to be a peculiarly nasty hatchet job. Ninety days, eh, what?

Strangely, the Great British Public seems to be regarding Johnson as the originator of Covid, the bloke what killed their elderly relatives, a bit of a Nero, partying  away while Britain couldn't even go down the pub, never mind pick up a bit of  willing totty.  

Interviewed on the Laura Noseberg show on Sunday morning,

 Michael Gove, God Bless 'im (he's become a bit of a National Treasure by dint of Not Going Away), was firmly, decisively, resolutely, definitively, not to be drawn on the issue of Boris - good bloke, or Boris - Evil Monster from Hell. 

"The Report of the Privileges Committee is a thorough piece of work and it has much to inform us and I will be firmly and resolutely abstaining":

The three volumes of  mr ishmael's Collected Works, selected, edited and anthologised by mr verge, the House Filthster, are now available.  

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :
please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box.  Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.
Link for Hardcover :  https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr
Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux
At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage.  If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.  
With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.