Unusual Window

Roses inside and out, and they smell so... rosey. In front of the window Mike put in again, lower, while I was in England; love that I can look out on the garden now without opening the door.

Reguengos to get eye tests for Portuguese driving licenses, paid ten euros each. Few steps still to go...

Gratefuls:
- feeling happier than yesterday, think because felt there was an objective for the day
- getting the last four croissants - apparently, there's a new B&B woman, who comes in and buys them all
- walking to the library to be shown Mourão's new Citizen's Advice Bureau (or similar), which Cecílio will be helping to run - especially useful for those who have problems doing admin online

The Body, ch 15 - The Guts, p293-294
For a very long time, nearly everything we knew about the stomach was thanks to an unfortunate accident in 1822. In the summer of that year, on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron in upper Michigan, a customer was examining a rifle in the island general store when it suddenly went off. A young Canadian fur trapper named Alexis St Martin had the misfortune to be standing just three feet away and directly in the line of fire. The shot tore a hole in his in his chest just below the left breast, and gave him something he really didn't want: the most famous stomach in medical history. St Martin miraculously survived, but the wound never entirely healed. St Martin's doctor, a US army surgeon named William Beaumont, realized that the inch-wide hole gave him an unusual window into the trapper's interior and direct access to his stomach. He took St Martin into his home and looked after him, but with the understanding (sealed with a formal contract) that Beaumont would be free to perform experiments on his guest... Beaumont eventually published a landmark book... For about a century, almost all medical knowledge of the process of digestion was thanks to St Martin's stomach.


PS Having problems with the internet, which keeps coming and going, so comments are sparse, sorry!
PPS Feels like the end of a chapter that the Yorkshire Ripper died, he terrorised my final year at Leeds Uni - his last victim was a Uni student, killed just next to where I cycled every day, at about 9pm, if I remember correctly. That very night, I cycled back from campus at about 11pm.