The Human Body: a dissection

Published on 1/15/2009 under Medicine
TAGS: Atlas of the Human Body, Dissection of the Human Body

From the tiniest veins, arteries and nerves to serial cross-sections of the spinal cord, these incredibly detailed dissections show and label most every part of the human body.

The collection is the product of a 17-year collaboration between David L. Bassett, a School of Medicine alumnus and faculty member known for his elegant dissections and love for the human body, and William Gruber, the photographer who invented the View-Master stereoscopic viewing device.

The partnership between the two resulted in the production of the Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy, which began in 1948, but was not not completed until 1962. It consisted of 221 View-Master reels with 1,554 color stereo views of dissections of every body region. Each stereo view was accompanied by a black-and-white, labeled drawing and explanatory text.

A courtesy the Lane Medical Archives (thanks Drew!), today we present you some of the most impressive pictures of The Basset Collection. Meet the Human Body.


A deep dissection of the side of the head shows the many blood vessels (red arteries, blue veins) and nerves (graying white) in the facial region. The hole is the external ear canal. The temporal muscle, used for chewing, is the prominent fan shaped muscle on the side of skull, behind the mouth and above the jaw.



After the removal of an outer layer of bones around the jaw, the dissection shows blood vessels and sensory nerves to the lower teeth and chin.



The onion-like structure is an eye, seen from above with the bony roof of the eye socket removed. The profusion of blood vessels and the muscles that rotate the eye are visible.



A pelvis from a woman, right, is lighter and wider than that of a man, left. The wider angle of a woman's pubic bones at the base of the pelvis allows birthing of a baby.






Removal of the skin and the layer of tough tissue beneath it, the palmar fascia, reveals a complex arrangement of blood vessels and nerves in the hand and wrist.



This dissection of the kidneys was done after red latex was injected into the arteries and blue latex into the veins.



With all layers of the skin removed on the left side of the head and neck, the dissection displays the blood vessels and nerves of the scalp, almost all of which come from the periphery, not through the skull. Colored latex was injected into the blood vessels: red for arteries, blue for veins. The structures in the neck remain covered by a tough layer of tissue known as the cervical fascia.



Inside the vertebral column, cut in half vertically, is a channel for the spinal nerves. The brown material is the bones; the white material is the intervertral disks that sometimes "rupture," causing back pain. A horizontal split has been made on the left to show the connection of the sacrum, a triangular bone at the base of the spine, to the pelvis.



This view of the wrist joint features the two rows of four carpal bones each and shows how they are connected to the bones of the forearm and the fingers.



A dissection of the leg and the foot displays the long tendons connected to the toes, and the blood vessels and nerves to the top of the foot.



This dissection of the backbone was performed by Donald Stilwell, another Stanford professor, for the Bassett atlas. Note the profusion of arterial blood vessels nourishing the vertebral area of the neck and chest area. Also, at the top, the ends of the vertebral arteries, which pass into the skull to nourish the brain.



The mediastinum, a central chest compartment located between the lungs, houses the heart. Immediately to the right of the heart is the aorta, the largest artery of the body. To the right of the aorta are groups of blood vessels (one artery and two companion veins) that run between the ribs to distribute blood through the body. The phrenic nerve, which sends messages to the diaphragm to breath, is visible as it crosses the heart vertically.



Dissection of the meninges and brain in situ. On the right the calvaria and layers of the scalp are shown in relation to the dura. On the left the dura has been cut away to reveal the cerebral hemisphere and cerebellum covered with the arachnoid membrane. The confluence of the sinuses is shown.



The sclera and cornea have been cut away on the medial side of a right eye to display the anterior chamber, iris, ciliary body and outer surface of the choroid. Although none of the vessels has been injected, the branches of the superior and inferior medial vorticose veins are clearly visible. The long posterior ciliary artery was cut across in the resection of the sclera but its course can be traced nearly to the ciliary body.



On this dissection of the heart, the epicardium has been removed from all parts of the atria with the exception of the left auricle.



Dissection of lungs in situ. The lungs have been dissected from their medial surfaces and are reflected laterally for this image. Fragmentary portions of all of the chambers of the heart have been preserved. The great vessels have been kept intact, although the aorta and pulmonary trunk have been elevated to expose more posterior parts of the heart.



The cervical spinal cord. By removing the rear arches of the neck (cervical) vertebra and the fibrous covering (dura) over the spinal cord one sees the cervical spinal cord and its nerves. The blood vessels nourishing the cord and vertebral column and the origin of the cord from the brain are clearly shown.



Dissection of thorax from a posterior approach. Ribs and vertebral bodies have been resected bilaterally between the second and the ninth thoracic segments. The periosteum which covered the inner surfaces of the ribs have been preserved in most areas. The anterior longitudinal ligament, with remnants of the intervertebral discs attached, has also been retained in part. The lungs have been inflated and are visible through the intact costal pleura. The proximal parts of the III-VII spinal nerves have been positioned on the pleura in such a way that their dorsal and ventral roots, dorsal rami and communications with the sympathetic trunks are visible. These components are labeled for the left seventh thoracic nerve. The intercostal arteries and veins have been cut off in various ways.



The knee joint opened from the front shows the inner surface of the knee cap or patella within its large ligament which is folded downward and forward. The ear shaped cartilages lie on the surface of the joint floor formed by the tibia. Between the cartilages one sees the cut ends of the cruciate ligaments so often injured in athletics and frequently reconstructed surgically.



The Jawbone. The masseter muscle of mastication reflected back to expose the jawbone (mandible) and the related vessels, nerves and muscles.

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15 Most Bizarre X-Rays

Published on 1/28/2009 under Misc
TAGS: Crazy X-Rays, Bizarre X-Rays, Strange X-Rays


These amazing X-rays show how a man arrived with a tap and 16 inches of pipework stuck in his eye at a hospital's casualty unit. But the terrified patient was forced to pull the tap out himself - because surgeons took three hours to send for a plumber to get it out. Yi Zhao, 57, had slipped in the bath impaling his left eye on the tap at his home.



This 2.5lb and 17 cm in diameter kidney stone was removed from a patient in Hungary, world's largest.



Eleven-year-old Chinese schoolboy Liu Cheong had a brush with death when his friend shot him in the head with a 16-inch arrow, according to numerous international media reports. The arrow entered his skull through the eye socket and lodged in the back of his head. Somehow, the boy was spared a fatal brain injury.



This X-ray shows how, during a fall, a car key penetrated the eyelid of 17-month-old Nicholas Holderman of Kentucky, reaching his brain. While doctors initially believed that the object had ruptured Nicholas' eyeball, another team of specialists later confirmed that the boy had sustained no permanent damage.



X-ray images show how a teenage boy cheated death when a 5-inch knife was plunged into his head. The 16-year-old and two other young men were injured when they tried to stop a friend getting robbed at a bus stop. The teenager was rushed to hospital with the kitchen knife still stuck in his forehead after the attack in Walworth, south London, in September 2008.



This X-ray was taken of a 60-year-old man who checked himself into Nishtar Hospital in Multan, Pakistan. He sought treatment because he claimed thieves had inserted a Pepsi bottle into his anus before stealing two of his buffalo.






A dentist found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof of his mouth: a four-inch (10-centimeter) nail the construction worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six days earlier.



Doctors in Pakistan removed a whole lightbulb from this prisoner's anus. The man said he awoke with the problem, but doctors weren't so sure.



8-year-old Haley Lents of Indiana swallowed 10 magnets and 20 steel balls from a Magnetix toy set. The magnets and balls attracted one another within her digestive tract, ripping a total of eight holes in her intestines and forcing her parents to rush her to the hospital for emergency surgery. Lents later told reporters that the magnets and steel balls "looked like candy."



The 5-centimeter nail shown in this X-ray was found after a man came to a Seoul, South Korea, hospital complaining of a severe headache. After examining and interviewing the man, doctors speculated that the nail had been the result of an accident four years before his visit, but that the man did not know the nail was lodged in his head.



This X-ray reveals a cell phone lodged in a Salvadoran prisoner's lower intestine. According to news reports, the man is one of four prisoners who are members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang. The men were caught with cell phones, spare chips and a charger that they had attempted to smuggle, according to authorities at San Salvador's Zacatecoluca prison.



Surgery was needed to save Houdini, a 12-foot Burmese python in Ketchum, Idaho, that swallowed an entire electric blanket with the electrical cord and control box. The X-ray here shows the blanket's tangled wiring and mechanism within the python's intestine.



This photo of an X-ray provided by Imperial Point Animal Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., shows a 13-inch serrated knife that somehow was swallowed by Elsie, a 6-month-old Saint Bernard puppy. The dog had the blade between her esophagus and stomach for about four days before it was removed in a two-hour operation. The puppy has an 8-inch scar but recovered quickly and was returned to her family.



A keeper at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on Australia's Gold Coast holds a carpet python snake. The 32-inch snake swallowed four golf balls it likely mistook for eggs, according to local reports. Surgery was needed to remove the balls from the snake's intestine.



This X-ray reveals the Australian kitten, known as Kohl, inside the gut of a 6-foot-long carpet python. Though the kitten's skull was larger than the snake's girth, the reptile dislocated its jaw to swallow the feline whole.

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10 Unbelievable Medical Mistakes

Published on 2/16/2009 under Medicine
TAGS: Medical Errors, Medical Mistakes

The Fertility Clinic that used the wrong sperm

When Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., became pregnant after an in vitro fertilization procedure at a New York fertility clinic, she and her husband expected a beautiful new addition to their family. What they did not expect was a child whose skin was significantly darker than that of either parent. Subsequent DNA tests suggested that doctors at New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine accidentally used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs.

The couple has since raised Baby Jessica, who was born Oct. 19, 2004, as their own, according to wire reports. But the couple still filed a malpractice suit against the owner of the clinic, as well as the embryologist who allegedly mixed up the samples.

Received the wrong heart and lungs, then died

17-year-old Jésica Santillán died 2 weeks after receiving the heart and lungs of a patient whose blood type did not match hers. Doctors at the Duke University Medical Center failed to check the compatibility before surgery began. . After a rare second transplant operation to attempt to rectify the error, she suffered brain damage and complications that subsequently hastened her death.

Santillán, a Mexican immigrant, had come to the United States three years before to seek medical treatment for a life-threatening heart condition. The heart-lung transplant that surgeons at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., hoped would improve this condition instead put her in greater danger; Santillán, who had type-O blood, had received the organs from a type-A donor.

The error sent the patient into a comalike state, and she died shortly after an attempt to switch the organs back out for compatible ones failed. The hospital blamed human error for the death, along with a lack of safeguards to ensure a compatible transplant. According to reports, Duke reached an agreement on an undisclosed settlement with the family. Neither the hospital nor the family is allowed to comment on the case.

A $200,000 testicle

In yet another case of a wrongful operation, surgeons mistakenly removed the healthy right testicle of 47-year-old Air Force veteran Benjamin Houghton. The patient had been complaining of pain and shrinkage of his left testicle so doctors decided to schedule surgery to remove it due to cancer fears. However, the veteran's medical records suggest a series of missteps -- from an error on the consent form to a failure on the part of medical personnel to mark the proper surgical site before the procedure. The error, which took place at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, spurred a $200,000 lawsuit from Houghton and his wife.

A 13-Inch souvenir

Donald Church, 49, had a tumor in his abdomen when he arrived at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle in June 2000. When he left, the tumor was gone -- but a metal retractor had taken its place. Doctors admitted to leaving the 13-inch-long retractor in Church's abdomen by mistake. It was not the first such incident at the medical center; four other such occurrences had been documented at the hospital between 1997 and 2000. Fortunately, surgeons were able to remove the retractor shortly after it was discovered, and Church experienced no long-term health consequences from the mistake. The hospital agreed to pay Church $97,000.

An open heart invasive procedure... on the wrong patient

Joan Morris (a pseudonym) is a 67-year-old woman admitted to a teaching hospital for cerebral angiography. The day after that procedure, she mistakenly underwent an invasive cardiac electrophysiology study. After angiography, the patient was transferred to another floor rather than returning to her original bed. Discharge was planned for the following day. The next morning, however, the patient was taken for a open heart procedure. The patient had been on the operating table for an hour. Doctors had made an incision in her groin, punctured an artery, threaded in a tube and snaked it up into her heart (a procedure with risks of bleeding, infection, heart attack and stroke). That was when the phone rang and a doctor from another department asked “what are you doing with my patient?” There was nothing wrong with her heart. The cardiologist working on the woman checked her chart, and saw that he was making an awful mistake. The study was aborted, and she was returned to her room in stable condition.

Hospital makes a wrong-sided brain surgery... for the third time in a year

For the third time on the same year, doctors at Rhode Island Hospital have operated on the wrong side of a patient's head. The most recent incident occurred Nov. 23 2007. An 82-year-old woman required an operation to stop bleeding between her brain and her skull. A neurosurgeon at the hospital began a surgery by drilling the right side of the patient's head, even though a CT scan showed bleeding on the left side, according to local reports. The resident reportedly caught his mistake early, after which he closed the initial hole and proceeded on the left side of the patient's head. The patient was listed in fair condition on Sunday.

The case echoes of a similar mistake last February, in which a different doctor operated on the wrong side of a patient's head. And last August, an 86-year-old man died three weeks after a surgeon at Rhode Island Hospital accidentally operated on the wrong side of his head.

The Surgeon who removed the wrong leg

In what was, perhaps, the most publicized case of a surgical mistake in its time, a Tampa (Florida) surgeon mistakenly removed the wrong leg of his patient, 52-year-old Willie King, during an amputation procedure in February 1995.

It was later revealed that a chain of errors before the surgery culminated in the wrong leg being prepped for the procedure. While the surgeon's team realized in the middle of the procedure that they were operating on the wrong leg, it was already too late, and the leg was removed. As a result of the error, the surgeon's medical license was suspended for six months and he was fined $10,000. University Community Hospital in Tampa, the medical center where the surgery took place, paid $900,000 to King and the surgeon involved in the case paid an additional $250,000 to King.

The healthy kidney removed by mistake

In St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a patient was submitted at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital to have one of his kidneys removed because it had a tumor believed to be cancerous. Instead, doctors removed the healthy one.

"The discovery that this was the wrong kidney was made the next day when the pathologist examined the material and found no evidence of any malignancy," said Samuel Carlson, M.D. and Park Nicollet Chief Medical Officer. The potentially cancerous kidney remained intact and functioning. For privacy and family's request, no details about the patient were released.

Wide-Awake Surgery led to his suicide

A West Virginia man's family claims inadequate anesthetic during surgery allowed him to feel every slice of the surgeon's scalpel - a trauma they believe led him to take his own life two weeks later. Sherman Sizemore was admitted to Raleigh General Hospital in Beckley, W.Va., Jan. 19, 2006 for exploratory surgery to determine the cause of his abdominal pain. But during the operation, he reportedly experienced a phenomenon known as anesthetic awareness -- a state in which a surgical patient is able to feel pain, pressure or discomfort during an operation, but is unable to move or communicate with doctors.

According to the complaint, anesthesiologists administered the drugs to numb the patient, but they failed to give him the general anesthetic that would render him unconscious until 16 minutes after surgeons first cut into his abdomen. Family members say the 73-year-old Baptist minister was driven to kill himself by the traumatic experience of being awake during surgery but unable to move or cry out in pain.

Not so funny: wrong artery bypassed

Two months after a double bypass heart operation that was supposed to save his life, comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member Dana Carvey got some disheartening news: the cardiac surgeon had bypassed the wrong artery. It took another emergency operation to clear the blockage that was threatening to kill the 45-year-old funnyman and father of two young kids. Responding to a $7.5 million lawsuit Carvey brought against him, the surgeon said he'd made an honest mistake because Carvey's artery was unusually situated in his heart. But Carvey didn't see it that way: "It's like removing the wrong kidney. It's that big a mistake," the entertainer told People magazine.

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