The Bat Artificial Kidney

In later years, Batman's utility belt was put to less glamorous use.

Doggy Dialysis

NHS & BBC

The BBC marks the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the NHS with a story that sets the benchmark for objectivity:

Three generations grateful for NHS

This headline that would do credit to the North Korean news agency was balanced in the story itself by lines like this:

Anthony was born with blue asphyxia. Today he is convinced the NHS saved his life - and that of his mother.

And from there It gets downright sycophantic. Overcrowded hospitals? Endless waiting lists? Mixed sex wards? Treatment rationing? A haemorrhaging budget with an army of bureaucrats to a squad of doctors? Sorry, no mention of that here.

All we need now is a pronouncement from Minitruth that all diseases have been eradicated and we'll have the set.

We Can Regrow Him

Spray-on limbs and print-out organs; the cutting edge (pardon the pun) of military surgery

Ready for My Close Up, Mr. Anderson

Johann Hari of The Independent claims that botox is ruining Hollywood because actors can no longer do proper expressions with their faces paralysed.

And here I thought they were just talentless poseurs subscribing to the Captain Scarlet school of acting.

Factory Reconditioned

Scientists at the University of Minnesota have succeeded in using stem cells to "refurbish" a dead heart; making it fit to start beating again.

Baron Victor Frankenstein was unavailable for comment.

Live Organ Transplants

Mr. Gordon Brown's "presumed consent" organ confiscation donation plan in operation.

Health Control

The British Prime Minister, Mr. Gordon Brown has indicated that the NHS will refuse to treat patients unless they stop smoking, take exercise and lose weight.

Attending the Two-Minute Hate remains optional, although failure to attend will result in a visit from the Thoughtpolice.

Update: Assuming, of course, that you aren't just told to sod off and treat yourself because it's cheaper on the NHS.

I think it's about time that we asked Mr. Brown to show us his medical degree.

The Ultimate Martini

Australian doctors have saved the life of an Italian tourist by giving him an alcohol drip feed.

Oddly, in many parts of Australia this procedure is known as "cutting out the middleman."

Eh, Eck

Breeam surgeons av discovered 'a' tinkerin wi' t' breeam can gerr rid o' 'a' northern call 'n mek theur call li' eur reet toff.

Henry Higgins wor unavailable for comment.

More Money Than Sense

Does your dog hate being left out of the trendy, and incredibly expense, oxygen therapy fad? Do you have a fat bank account and all the common sense of a retarded Belgian hamster? Then get out the plastic, ring up the AirPress company and order the O2 Dog oxygen therapy system.

And don't be put off by thoughts of canine claustrophobia or the fact that O2 Dog looks suspiciously like AirPress's Dog-in-a-Can, Pickle-a-Poodle, and Terrier Time Capsule.

Sebastian Haff, Call Your Service

From the BBC:

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.

Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

According to the author of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.

Of course, the fact that Oscar took out large insurance policies on each of the patients had nothing to do with it.

Pontius Pilate, Call Your Service

Abandoning all understanding of who works for whom, Britain's Chief Medical Officer orders patients to remind doctors to wash their hands.

Also not to ram flaming Jeeps into airport lobbies.

Body of the Law

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, is expected to recommend that the law in Britain be changed so that instead of people donating their organs for transplants, said organs would be "harvested" automatically after death unless the patient specifically makes his wishes known otherwise.

I haven't a dog in this fight, since I spent so much time in the tropics that not even Dr. Frankenstein would want my liver and lights, but I find it rather telling that Britain has a government that not only believes that our lives are not our own, but that our bodies are only ours by sufferance as well.

Astute Observations from Beyond

"Fidel Castro," whose "best health care in the world" involves the common folk scrounging for Pepto-Bismol and aspirin on the black market while the party elite and foreign tourists enjoy special clinics, has criticised the British, saying that the price of the new Astute-class submarines would train 75,000 doctors.

Quite right. And if we didn't have the submarines we could employ all those doctors to patch up all the people maimed by the likes of Castro as they run rough-shod over the world.

Don't you have some mouldering to get on with, old boy?

Roboleech

Performs heart surgery by worming its way through the chest cavity, hunts for Sarah Connor.

Eight out of ten for ingenuity, ten out of ten for the "ick" factor.

Update: Personally, I'd stick with the mental picture rather than running the video.