Truer words were never spoken...

Via Modern Mechanix, an ad from 1938:

i-e0656a71dd26e168bc750a6b8d0279b7-lrg_rupture_support.jpg

Does this make you think of something other than a medical ad? Maybe it's the whole thing about the "human hand" being placed on the groin as a truss.

Actually, the best "support" for a "rupture" (a.k.a. an inguinal hernia) these days is some polypropylene mesh sewn into place properly as either a sheet and/or plug to hold the "rupture" in. Back in 1938, the best "support" was some conjoined tendon sewn to the appropriate ligament, the most common of which when I was a resident, back in the days right before mesh became popular, was the Bassini repair, although the Cooper's ligament repair and Shouldice repair were also taught.

These days, with tension-free repairs done using mesh, hernia repairs are generally not that big a deal. We should be grateful that they are no longer done the way that they were attempted hundreds of years ago:

i-db2d5c88d378a60d7e9c79240e9c2bfb-art-gilbert-fig06.jpeg

Now that looks painful.

Clearly, though, surgeons understood even centuries ago the importance of the Trendelenburg position.

More like this

So I've been dealing with a sick computer for a while now. It died ungracefully during ScienceOnline09, first giving me the dread blue screen of death, then giving me a black startup screen that said the pc equivalent of "piss off".
Sometimes, it isn't just what's broken or how badly it's broken, but location can turn a trivial job into a virtually impossible one. Take the last shuttle repair mission to Hubble, for example.
Les Lang at the UNC Medical Center News Office now writes a blog - Hard Science.

In the medieval picture, what are the two guys trying to do? Is that a knife the large guy is holding? Is he going to try to cut off a hernia?

Duct Tape.

What else is needed?

fusilier
James 2:24

Does it make me think of something other than a medical ad? Hell yes.

"Rupture" is assonant with "eruption," while the ad shows a man reaching toward his unclothed groin. Then they drop huge text into the middle talking about the "Brooks device" and its resemblance to a human hand--and they send you the information in a plain envelope! Good Lord.

Oh yes, and the phrase "ease, comfort, and happiness."