Top Ten Medical Devices We Miss

Medicine is always trying to improve, and sometimes that means discarding some fond procedures and medical devices that are no longer acceptable to today’s evidence-based practice. So, inspired by a list of discarded technology at C|Net, we’d like to start the nostalgia over medical devices and procedures we miss (or, in most cases, never got to use):
1. The Precordial Thump

It couldn’t be simpler, or more satisfying: take your fist and whack an unresponsive patient’s breastbone. And before people knew about cardiac contusions or commotio cordis, it was done quite a bit. The thump isn’t entirely gone — it’s still allowed by ACLS guidelines for witnessed arrest in the absence of a defibrillator. There’s some evidence that the energy of the strike can sometimes convert a ventricular tachycardia to a normal rhythm, and in the case of witnessed arrest, it’s worth the risk. Otherwise, it’s an artifact of a lively past.
2. The Iron Lung

Hop in up to your neck, and feel your chest expand with the vacuum. The iron lung has been replaced, for the most part, by intubation and positive pressure respiration. But we’re told that a few polio survivors with decreased chest wall musculature preferred the old way of breathing and iron lungs remained in many hospitals until the 1980’s (after peaking thirty years earlier). The iron lung is still indicated for in rare circumstances, such as Ondine’s curse.
3. Cantor Tubes and Mercury for Small Bowel Obstruction
Another intuitively appealing idea: blast past blockages by pushing mercury up against the obstruction. Plumbers would approve, but patients suffered complications such as this… or this (pictured right)…
OK, readers, the rest is up to you! Submit your favorite medical devices of yore, and we’ll run your proposals next week!