This one is a no-brainer!
In the 20-year history of YCBS, we have never before broken more astonishing news than what you are about to read here this week. There has been a medical breakthrough of such momentous magnitude that it fails us to do it justice here. I imagine, though, that the greatest obstacle restricting mankind from reaping the full benefit of this unbelievable advancement is the likelihood that those who need it most won’t see the need for it.
We won’t keep you in suspense any longer… so here it is. A brain transplant is now possible!
The history of transplants has transformed a mythological concept into life-saving reality for humans over the last 70 years or so. But a new brain… I kid you not!
In 1953, Dr Joseph Murray performed the world’s first successful human organ transplant in Boston by exchanging a kidney between two identical twin brothers. In 1966, the first kidney and pancreas transplants took place. In 1967, the first human liver transplant was performed by Dr Thomas Starzi and somehow many of us remember Dr Christiaan Barnard famously performing the first human heart transplant in South Africa the same year. Lung transplants followed from 1981 and in 1998 a team in Lyon, France, performed the first successful human hand transplant on Clint Hallam. As recently as today, I read in a newspaper about the invention of a new machine that can keep donor’s lungs alive pending a suitable recipient.
But surely not a new brain?!
Before we set your hopes too high for fixing maybe a nutty neighbour or that loud lunatic lady, let us say we aren’t fully there yet for a completely new brain… but medical science is well on the way.
Six years ago, a young man by the name of Keith Thomas dived into a swimming pool without checking where the water was. The unfortunate man struck the bottom of the pool, suffering horrendous injuries resulting in him being paralysed. But now, after a recent partial brain transplant in a New York hospital, 42-year-old Keith is able to feed himself, experience feeling in his nerves again and, as he says himself, he has; ‘returned to life’. This is another medical miracle.
In taking our sometime jaundiced look at the consequences, we in no way mean to disparage this amazing achievement, the blessing it is to Mr Thomas or the gift promised to future beneficiaries.
Anyway, the Lads had it on the agenda for their weekly meeting in the pub after Mass on Sunday. First topic, as usual, was ‘what did he have to say today’; meaning what did the priest preach about. John ‘Baptist’, the designated Mass-goer, gave a summary for the benefit of those who missed it by a few doors. The match would always be left until last because that subject had no agreed conclusion, so AOB took place after various takes on the priest’s performance.
‘I hear you can now get a brain transplant,’ spoke ‘Moran the Dub’. Now all the Lads wanted to talk. Names were being thrown around right left and centre as to whom were the most pressing cases needing this latest of medical advances. Strangely enough nobody said; ‘I could do with one of those.’ Instead, the discussion started off about ‘bucks’ around town that ‘a new brain would make a great job of’.
Tommy, noted for liking a few pints fast, always came late into the discussion, but now he was in full flow. He wondered if brains could be traded, suggesting that there has to be a market for swapping brains.
Brendan, who, of course, is regarded as knowing everything since the night he explained how to build an airplane, wondered what might happen if a woman got a man’s brain.
One of the Gorls took exception to that and retorted that at least a woman kept her brain in her head.
Mark, the man with the stammer, finally got his ‘spake’ in with; ‘I…I…if a c…cro…w ha…had some o … of yo…your b…br…bra… brains he…he … d f … fly ba…bac…back… w… backways.’
Everyone had a good laugh to finish up, except ‘Moaner’. None of the Lads wanted any truck with Moaner’s brain. ‘That one is a no-brainer,’ concluded Ned, regarded as the most sensible among them.
Don’t Forget
The most complicated problem can have a simple solution given the proper thought.
An 11-year-old girl on a school trip to Dartmoor slipped and had her leg wedged in a rock crevice on Hound Hor on one of the hottest days of the year. Rescuers arrived with specialist equipment to cut into the rock but all attempts to free the girl failed. It was feared that the child would lose her leg – until a man by the name of Olly Rees arrived with a bottle of ‘Fairy Liquid’ washing up liquid. Olly applied the full contents of the bottle liberally to Shannon’s leg and the two of them working together slipped the leg free!