This blog should come before the following blog

Every Week, Interesting and Unexpected

My sixty three year old Dagomba watchman, who protects me and my house with his bow and arrows, had a persistent, hacking, morning cough and a sputum smear showed the Tuberculosis bacillus. Because patients stop their anti-tuberculosis medication when stomach discomfort occurs, his pill, containing four medications, will be taken daily under my direct observation. He has not appeared in two days either due to miscommunication or he is seeking a diviner, for the Dagombas believe sickness results from offending the ancestors and the ancestor must be appeased with sacrifices to again gain their protection from disease. A diviner will recommend the appropriate sacrifices. He will also take his medicine, because there is no harm in playing both ends.
Last Friday, a cadaver dissection of the facial nerve was done with the medical students. Even though they were off this week, they requested another demonstration and sixty students arrived for a dissection of the carotid and jugular vessels, cranial nerves V, X, XI, XII, ansa cervicalis, cervical plexus, strap muscles, thyroid and parathyroid glands. In their final dissection the vessels, brachial plexus, larynx, trachea and esophagus will be demonstrated.
We do not have a pediatric endoscope or a pediatric anesthesiologist, so it was safer to examine the larynx of a floppy, eleven month old girl with noisy breathing using an adult nasopharyngoscope passed orally. Her bite was weak and a finger in her mouth protected the fragile endoscope. Her larynx was normal.