h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
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Rats are fairly smart. Not smart enough to write "humans
are fairly smart", but fairly smart nevertheless. They are,
in fact, smart enough to be trainable.
I believe also that the notion of aqualungs for rats (as a
counterpoint to dirigible goldfish bowls) have also been
postulated on this
forum some time ago. It's probably safe
to assume, therefore, that they have since been perfected.
So. Step one is to train the rat to perform progressively
more sophisticated surgical procedures, using silicone
replicas* and a food-based reward system. Distinguishing
an appendix from a colon, for example, could probably be
taught in a week or so - only slightly longer than the time
taken by medical students. Teaching the rat to either
nibble through the neck of the appendix, or to slice it with
tiny paw-mounted blades, may take a little longer but
presents no fundamental challenge.
Teaching a rat to suture is, probably, tricky. However,
medical adhesives are set to replace sutures, and a
dispenser on the rat's free paw would not be difficult to
realize.
Upon completion of training, the rat is ready to be
sterilized (in the bacteriocidal sense of the word). It can
then be introduced into a relatively modest incision,
whereupon it will rummage around, do its job, and emerge
bloodied but unbowed to receive its reward.
Why rats? I hear you ask. Well, there are several reasons.
First, chimpanzees are too large (a pity, given their
intelligence). Second, rats are fairly soft and compliant,
and unlikely to bruise or damage tissues in the way that
keyhole implements can.
*of the internal organs, not of the rat.
Moles (Talpidae)
http://en.wikipedia...eathing_underground
Small, yet perfectly formed. [8th of 7, Feb 04 2014]
for smaller simpler jobs
http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Maggot_therapy
Maggots used to remove dead tissue [popbottle, Feb 05 2014]
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Incidentally, before someone points out that a
weasel can get through a hole the size of a wedding
ring, we tried that. Weasels get disoriented and lost
very, very easily. |
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Plus, it could just eat diseased tissue, much like maggot therapy. |
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"It's probably safe to assume, therefore, that they have since been perfected" |
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Well, THERE'S a tagline... |
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Moles. Used to working in dark, damp confined spaces. Could be
trained to treat appendices like earthworms. Very tolerant of high CO2
levels <link>. Not as intelligent as most rats, but probably more
intelligent than most medical students. |
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Might the the rat/mole/octopus reside inside you as a symbiant who continually tinkers with your inner workings in exchange for feeding? Preventative medicine is much better than acute. |
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//Might the the rat/mole/octopus reside inside you
as a symbiant // |
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No, that would be an ant. |
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Why not ? Have you got some sort of prejudice against moles ...? |
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Ahhhh ... you're not still fretting about "that incident" are you ? To be
fair, the intercalary twin was uncharacteristically apologetic, and
neither the moles nor the young lady came to any actual harm ... she
seemed quite amused, actually, and no doubt she was well
remunerated for her time and trouble. |
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Everyone else thought it was hilarious. C'mon, lighten up a bit. Can't
take a joke, shouldn't have joined ... |
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If you had seen what a single mole can do to a
croquet lawn in an afternoon, you would appreciate
that they are unsuited to this task. |
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Moles are ideally suited to parasite treatment; simply internalise a mole and let it eat any worms it comes across. |
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Be nice, if the rats got small edible Doctor of surgery degrees. Karma, you know. |
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How would you make the silicone smell right? |
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Also, have you considered those omnivorous black Russian squirrels? If something went wrong, their tails would make them easier to pull out. |
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The way to go is cyborg rats, Shirley? It's probably
quite easy to bung a camera on a rat... possibly a
microscope too, for a bit of in-situ imaging. I know
there are already remote controlled rats... we
can't be that far off from being able to direct their
nibbles, possibly even take control of some of
their fine motor movements? |
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This way, the rats training can get it to the target
organ and from there a remote surgeon can take a
look and do the appropriate slashing. |
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Thing is, the surgeon may have trained for ten years,
but you can train a rat for half its lifetime. |
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also, automated training is (sort of) baked. You could
get a lot of numbers very quickly with automated
training and a lot of rats. It's probably possible to
train enough rats, pick the top 1% and they'll be
outperforming regular surgeons anyway. |
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Smaller than a rat, famously intelligent, an inherent love of wiggling through confined spaces and plenty of limbs and dexterity. |
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You probably could train a rat to chew off an appendix.
However, without cauterizing the area of incision first, the
patient will rapidly exsanguinate. The question therefore
becomes this: Can you train a rat to safely operate a
helmet mounted laser beam? I'd wager a pint that you
cannot, but that's a pint I would be more than pleased to
buy. |
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Will there be "Tom and Gerry" shaped entrance holes defined by the stitching outlines? |
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//Perhaps a small octupus? // |
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No no no. Apart from being woefully mis-spelled,
the octupus relies too much on vision, and not
enough on smell and touch, to reliably navigate
inside an unilluminated patient. |
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Fortunately, I have decided to volunteer [8th] as a
test subject for this project, so there should be
some useful information available soon. |
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Quite aside from the difficulty involved in actually
getting him *inside* a patient via a keyhole incision, I
fail to see how having [8th] do it is going to provide
any useful experimental data. |
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You haven't seen the elephant. Or the size of its
sphincter. |
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