Nature, Elk, and Popliteal Artery Aneurysms.

 

I took this photo last year in Yellowstone national park in Wyoming as a family of Elk came by to have lunch. I sat still, mostly as I did quietly took the picture. I had been for hours. I wasn't checking my cell phone, just sitting and observing everything. 

We forget that we, too, are nature. I had a fellow once who was full of energy, had lots of questions, and whose mind ran a lot faster than mine. My fellows get interesting assignments; some, who told me they never looked up at the stars, accompany me to a planetarium and a night sky watch, others I've had do a "Big Year" which is keeping a list of all the birds they see or hear over the course of their fellowship. They aren't allowed to graduate unless they turn in both a procedure log and a big year list. As an aside, Steve Martin and Jack Black made a really funny movie about their Big Year a while back. 

When you sit still long enough, without checking your phone, or a book, without chatting with yourself or someone else, you become part of the surroundings. Your senses becomes more acute, as you can hear the wind blowing between the leaves, on to your face, the grass on your feet, the smell of the forest trees. Your respirations and heart rate slow down. Time and your biological clock have slowed down. Nature has a calming effect on animals, including humans. Now, you are nature. Animals and insects sense that calmness and your energy and soon you'll see all sorts of animals, butterflies, come and commune with you.  

I was reminded of this moment in my memory when I read on the BBC this morning about an elk which had been running around a tire around his neck for the past two years who was finally caught and had it removed. They couldn't cut the steel walled tire so they cut off its antlers, which will grow back. I teach a course in the history of medicine and one of the anecdotes I sometimes point out to my students involves the 18th century Scottish surgeon, John Hunter. He, perhaps more than anyone else, was responsible for making surgery, before a profession of barbers and butchers, a scientific art. One of his famous studies involved a stag in Richmond Park. Hunter caught the animal and tied off its external carotid artery, noting soon after that the antler on that side had grown cold, but then several months later had grown warm once again. He reported on the development of collateral vessels and then later used that observation to successfully treat a popliteal artery aneurysm by tying it off at the proximal end only (for years the teaching was to tie off the top and bottom) and then collateral maintained the health of the distal leg. 

The fellow's assignment? To leave her phone at home, find a tree, and sit under it for a while quietly so that she could remind herself and the animals nearby we are nature. . .