A Squeamish Night Out in TaipeiIt was the night before Easter 1996 (no, this is not a poem!!) and we were in Taipei, Taiwan. We decided to go out and see a bit of the neighborhood attractions. As the 'patient' lay on the table it continued to move as though it were alive. It had already been five minutes since the 'surgeon' had removed the organ from the patient's body. Even though the heart was detatched from the body, the heart continued to live and beat and pump, but now all it seemed to be pumping was air. The patient was not doing well, although at this point was losing very little blood. It made one a bit squeamish to watch the whole operation but we felt that we could at least be their to lend a bit of support. Some of you may remember the first little story relating to the state of medical procedures in Taiwan, something which I wrote well over a year ago. Well, this was something to behold as well.
As we watched the surgeon finish his work we could see his assistant (nurse?) preparing some kind of liquid which she then brought in, it almost looked like beer. The heartless patient was picked up and all of a sudden her blood began spewing out. The johnny-on-the-spot nurse caught the blood in the large receptical which also contained the beer-like liquid. I don't think a drop hit the floor!! We were feeling a bit queasy by this time but Hannah was not willing to leave just yet and for the sake of the patient we decided to stay a bit longer. The patient was about 6'6". I don't think she could have weighed more than 7-10 pounds. The surgeon was a reptile specialist and the patient was a reptile. The doctor had put a large spring loaded paper clip in front of the mouth of the snake and when the snake bit the opened clip it would not let go. The doctor then hung the clip from the ceiling so that the 50 or so people who had gathered would have a good view. The guy knew his snakes. He used a razor sharp scissors and first exposed the heart so that we could see it beating inside the snake. Then he removed it and put it on the table as he continued to probe. With the snake hanging from the rafters all of its blood had gone to the lower extremities. The heart was about a third of the way from the head to the tail. When he removed the heart little blood came out. When the nurse came in with the pitcher half full of beer (it was beer!!) they then tipped the snake's tail up and poured all the remaining blood into the pitcher. Next was what I believe was the gall bladder, I could be mistaken, but for those who might have a better guess, the substance that he removed was green. He also added that to the pitcher of beer and blood. The "cruelty to animals" folks would have had a fit if they saw what we saw. There were some folks who tried to take a picture of the doctor with the snake during the procedure. There was a sign which hung over the doctors head which said in English and Chinese "No Picture Taking". The doctor was quick to catch the would be photo-journalists and chew them out. (ed. note: we took this picture 11 years ago!) Towards the end of the event the doctor mixed the pitcher of beer, blood and bile and then poured it into shot glasses and looked for volunteers to have a go at it. Seeing we had just had a McDonald's milkshake and figured that it would not mix well, we passed it up. We left to see other interesting things. By the way, the snake was then prepared and served to folks at the restaurant which was directly behind where the snake lost her life. Kevin Stellick |
