He Phineas Cage case is a classic of neuroscience: A bar weighing five kilos, more than a meter long and 2.5 centimeters thick pierced his head, entered through his left cheek and exited through the top of his skull driven by a gunpowder explosion. Cage survived, but his character changed radically, becoming an extroverted and foul-mouthed person when he had been someone very shy and timid.
But it is not the largest object removed from a human skull (keeping the patient alive). That honor belongs to another bar of iron, namely a 46 centimeter drill bit, almost half a meter.
Objects removed from the body
On August 15, 2003, the American bricklayer Ron Hunt fell face down from a ladder a 46cm drill bit which passed through his right eye, through his skull and out above his right ear. The drill bit displaced Hunt's brain instead of penetrating it, saving his life.
The heaviest object removed from a stomach, however, was removed in November 2007, when a 10-pound trichobezoar (hairball) was removed from the stomach of an 18-year-old girl at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. . The Rapunzel syndrome that the patient suffered from is the result of trichophagia, the compulsive urge to ingest hair.
The largest collection of surgically removed foreign bodies corresponds to Chavelier Quixote Jackson, who over 75 years of profession, removed 2,374 objects from the throats, esophagus and lungs of his patients, which are stored in the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection of the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
The collection has objects such as a child's theater binoculars, a padlock and a miniature trumpet. It is difficult to imagine that a person could swallow a wristwatch, 3 squirrel vertebrae or a shoe buckle, but it is true.
One of the most terrifying cases he had to face was that of a woman, a psychiatric patient, who had exactly 1,446 objects removed from her stomach; among them 453 nails, 409 pins, 63 buttons, 42 screws, 5 thimbles and 3 salt and pepper dispensers. He died during the operation.
–
The news
This is the largest object extracted from a human skull
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.