Posted on 12/20/2006 12:11:27 AM PST by 60Gunner
Great read. Almost like a war story.
A little gory, though. I'm a bit squeamish around the sight of blood.
You're willfully blind. Either that or you don't know anything about mechanics, unless you consider Asimo to be better engineered. (That's a joke, but I'm guessing that I have to spell things out for you). There is no mechanical device that even remotely compares to the human musculo-skeletal system. It's a staggeringly complex system, considered solely from a mechanical perspective. Ask any mechanical engineer.
There is no robot that has the range of motion and reliability and which can perform such a wide variety of tasks (walk, swim, climb, throw, sculpt, push, pull, etc.) under a wide range of conditions (heat, cold, rain, snow, etc.), fueled only by meat and vegetation, with very little maintenance.
It's staggeringly complex. It's pretty obvious that the engineer chose some really bad places to insert unnecessary complexity.
Two words: "veriform appendix." No self-respecting engineer would include such a subsystem that (a) performs no useful function and (b) readily becomes a hazard to the entire system's function, unless he was getting a kickback from the AMA. Not that long ago, inflammation of the appendix was guaranteed to be fatal.
Next, the bladder. Did you know that the first thing you should do in a fight is urinate in your pants? That's because if you don't, one solid kick to the lower torso will rupture what is essentially a water balloon full of lethal poison. When I was a cop, I responded to two traffic accidents where one of the involved drivers should have lived, because they wore their seat belts like they were supposed to--except that their bladder ruptured and they went toxic. There are other plausible methods for dumping waste out of the body that would work better.
Finally, I notice that you deleted the prime criteria: that the engineer would then brag about having done so. Other engineers would laugh at him. Mercilessly.
hahaha..that's hilarious....I have patients I see so often that when I don't see them in a month's time I worry ..are they are still alive?
When the nurse notices they haven't see you as a patient, then you're a definite "frequent flyer"!
I call this lost race Homo hey-watch-thissicus.
The three most commonly-observed subspecies (that is, those who wind up in Emergency Rooms across the nation more often than any others) are Homo jackassii, Homo webmedicus and Homo mindblowinglystupidiens.
OMG...I am ROFL reading the above lines - this is pure genius!
You have a gift - this book would be a hit! lol
The first regards the vermiform appendix. While its function may not be clearly understood, it does, in fact, contain a multitude of lymph nodes. Without getting into a major A&P lesson, it is sufficient to say that the lymph nodes are where the immune response really gets its oomph. They are major arenas where macrophages gobble up the bad guys. They are where antibodies are produced. Are you immune to a disease? Thank your lymph nodes. And returning to the vermiform appendix, there are, as I said, a whole lot of lymph nodes there.
It is interesting to note that the vermiform appendix also lies at a crucial juncture of the bowel, between the cecum and the ileum. Considering the function of lymph nodes, the multitude of which are in the vermiform appendix, and the location of the appendix, I would hypothesize that its existence, function and location, while not entirely understood by man, are no accident. We just don't understand it. And our inability to say "Aha! This is why we have a vermiform appendix!" doesn't make it useless. It simply means we have not figured it all out yet.
As a final note regarding the vermiform appendix, more people get along just fine with it in their bodies until they die at a good old age than those who develop acute appendicitis. We don't get a great deal of "appies." We do, on the other hand, get a helluva lot of other "butts and guts" cases, which are chiefly caused by years of high-fat, low-fiber diet. But I would also venture to guess that most people get along just fine with their large intestines, too.
Second, regarding urine and the urinary bladder. Urine, while in the body, is sterile. And look at a skeleton. Notice that that great big bony bowl formed by the pelvis: within that bowl is exactly where the urinary bladder lies. It is rather well-protected, and would require a helluva lot of force to burst it. A trauma team is concerned about burst urinary bladders, of course. But look beyond the bladder. In order to burst the bladder, a force of great magnitude would have to first shatter the pelvis. Of course, if the bladder is full, somewhat less force may be required, but the pelvic structure must be compromised nonetheless. It must be remembered that with the exception of penetrating trauma, destruction of the pelvic structure is what destroys the bladder. Penetration by the pelvic bones is the primary cause of bladder ruptures in a car accident.
Regarding the whole "peeing the pants in a fight" idea: As I am sure you are aware, that response is purely involuntary. When I was getting fired on as a soldier, I did not consciously decide to pe my pants. In fact, I did not pee my pants. I did, on the other hand, bite quarter-sized chunks out of my underwear- also an involuntary thing. (The layman calls it "pucker factor.") The parasympathetic nervous system governs the involuntary loss of bladder function. It is the negative feedback system gone too far, as evidenced by that spreading wet spot on a person's trousers. It is not a defensive thing; it is a physiological manifestation of the body's natural compensatory respose to extreme stress.
Now consider this: the bladder is not the only organ protected by the pelvis. The femoral arteries and the large bowel are also ensconsed therein. So when a crush injury destroys the pelvis, the bowel and femoral arteries are more likely to be damaged than the urinary bladder, because the bladder is a really tough organ. It's designed to stretch a great deal, and is quite muscular.
Remember here that while in the body, urine is sterile unless the person happens to have a bladder infection, of course. Sterile fluid is sterile fluid, no matter where is happens to go. The body can handle that. What happens in a traumatic injury to the pelvis is that the bowel usually ruptures. That's where you get the massive peritoneal invasion of bacteria- not from the urinary bladder. Further compromise of the vasculature opens the door for bacteria to invade the whole circulatory system- that's called septicemia, which leads to septic shock, MODS, ARDS, and if beyond the ability of medical science and know-how to thwart, death.
Anyway, that's the mechanism behind the whole pelvic trauma/sepsis thing. This is not my imagination talking, but rather the thousands of dollars worth of books I have acquired and the years of trauma experience I have gained. Your experience is meaningful, but medically speaking, it is isolated.
The bottom line is simply that there are an awful lot of body parts whose purposes are not fully understood. The uvula, the tonsils, the funny little divot under your nose, nipples on men, and so on. That does not make them useless, or proof of evolution. It merely makes them little understood.
Please allow me to propose this theorem: The human body is fantastic. It is so complex that we still, after thousands of years of research, have not figured the thing out. Whether one chooses to attribute the complexity to intelligent design, or whether one chooses to attribute to little-understood parts to evolution, is neither here nor there.
I sincerely hope that you do not take this post as a rebuke of any kind. Far from it! Rather, I felt the need to clarify the points for all concerned. I appreciate your contributions to this discussion. I welcome your perspective.
mark for later read...
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