Word: spinal
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WHILE DOING research surgery on a rat recently, I had the unsettling experience of seeing the rat begin to move its rear leg. This reaction is common to animals under anaesthetic: it results from reflexes at the level of the spinal cord rather than conscious awareness of pain. I knew I had used the proper dose of anaesthetic, but I was disturbed nonetheless. I couldn't help imagining what it would be like to experience such surgery without anaesthesia...
...been demoted for helping a small factory improve its miniature rubber bearings during his off-hours. Wang Ying, an independent fruit vendor in Peking, found herself on the front pages of the newspapers when an outraged policeman confiscated her vendor's license. In the fracas, her mother suffered spinal injuries. Officials apologized to Wang and compensated her for her losses, including her mother's medical expenses...
...development of the X-ray machine one hundred years ago." Unlike CAT and other forms of X ray, NMR can "see" with clarity through the thickest of bones. Thus, without painful injections of contrast material, it can reveal damage from a stroke buried deep beneath the skull, find tiny spinal cord injuries, and make it possible to differentiate the gray and white matter of the brain. "For the soft tissue of the body," says Worthington, "NMR comes close to being the perfect imaging technique...
...nation's 10 million physically handicapped, telecommuting encourages new hopes of earning a livelihood. A Chicago-area organization called Lift has taught computer programming to 50 people with such devastating afflictions as polio, cerebral palsy and spinal damage. Lift President Charles Schmidt cites a 46-year-old man paralyzed by polio: "He never held a job in his life until he entered our program three years ago, and now he's a programmer for Walgreens...
...says Wright State Technician Harry Heaton. "But it will eventually be a small microprocessor capable of being implanted pacemaker-style." Petrofsky says his system might be ready for commercialization within a decade. Others in the field find his optimism misleading. Says Dr. Paul Meyer, past president of the American Spinal Injury Association: "Imagine all that went into getting that young woman to take those steps. We've got an extremely long way to go before we can individualize this...