Kind, generous, and thoughtful Friend of the Blog Borepatch forwarded a nice obit from the Guardian for the late Clive Cussler, which was much appreciated.
In the early 2000s, Cussler agreed to work with co-authors at the request of his US publisher Simon and Schuster, in order to publish more frequently; in 2017 alone, he published four novels. “I don’t give a damn,” he said in a 2015 interview, in reply to criticism of the move. “I never had a highfalutin view of what I write. It’s a job. I entertain my readers. I get up in the morning and I start typing … I want it to be easy to read. I’m not writing exotic literature. I like snappy dialogue and short descriptions and lots of action.”
There’s an interesting obit in the NYT for Dr. Stanley Dudrick, who passed away at 84. I’d never heard of him, but when people say you rank with…
…Joseph Lister and Ignaz Semmelweis, who pioneered antiseptic medical procedures; William T.G. Morton, who popularized anesthesia during surgery; and Sir Alexander Fleming, who is credited with the discovery of penicillin.
What did he do? Well, when he was a medical resident, three people who had gone through “technically sucessful” surgeries died in the hospital. He wanted to know why, and devoted his time to research…
…finding the answer to be deceptively simple. But more than that, he perfected a treatment — one that has been credited with saving the lives of millions of premature infants as well as those of adults with a wide range of ailments, including cancer, severe bowel, kidney and liver diseases, and burns.
The deceptively simple cause?
The cause of the three deaths that had so motivated him, he concluded, was severe malnutrition. The patients had been unable to eat or to absorb enough nutrients to sustain life.
Malnutrition had often gone unrecognized as a direct or contributing cause of death because death certificates typically cited an underlying disease, like cancer or liver failure.
Dr. Dudrick developed “total parenteral nutrition” (TPN)…
…which bypasses the intestinal tract when a patient cannot receive food or fluids by mouth and instead injects nutrients — liquid carbohydrates, electrolytes, fats, minerals, proteins and vitamins — directly into the circulatory system through a vein.
He never patented TPN.
The intravenous delivery of concentrated nutrients proved successful over time in stimulating and restoring normal bodily functions, including immune systems of patients with malignant growths.
The technique has not only increased the chances of survival after operations; it has also spared many patients surgery — often because a diagnosis of malnutrition had not been contemplated and nutrition was not considered a remedy.
One peer who is quoted in the article believes Dr. Dudrick is responsible for saving “tens of millions of people across the world.”
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