Comments on: Archives: Starting Off on the Wrong Track

By: Laura Bien

Laura Bien — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:23:01 +0000

Roadsidedinerlover: There are a few Paneks in the area. But I’m not sure if it’s the same family: a LOT of people with this surname appear to have immigrated. There were many Paneks who settled in Detroit as well, including one Detroit Joseph Panek which threw me for a while till it got sorted out.

By: Laura Bien

Laura Bien — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:20:32 +0000

Jim Rees: For some of the operations described in some of the old 19th-century surgery books, you’d think the doctors might need a beverage with a bit more kick than caffeine to get through it. But your guess is noted.

By: RoadsideDinerLover

RoadsideDinerLover — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:00:43 +0000

I wonder if there are any descendants of Joseph Panek or his son in the Ypsilanti or Ann Arbor area. I think they would be proud of Joseph. Thank you for a great article!

By: Jim Rees

Jim Rees — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:08:00 +0000

Although originally a medical instrument, by Panek’s time surgeons used these to brew coffee during long operations. You close it around the percolator tube, tamp the grounds down on the perforations, and turn up the alcohol burner. Spent grounds would be disposed of in the nearest bedpan.

By: Laura Bien

Laura Bien — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:37:00 +0000

You are correct. The country of origin on his immigration documents and in the census indicates “Bohemia.” I modernized it to make it clearer, but I probably should have included a parenthetical explanation; good feedback that I”ll remember for the future; thank you, George.

By: George Hammond

George Hammond — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:30:51 +0000

If Josef Panek arrived in 1880, he could not have come from Czechoslovakia. That country did not exist until 1918, when it was formed from a portion of Austria-Hungary.

By: cmadler

cmadler — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:51:45 +0000

Ditto what ABC said. I’m guessing it’s a device to cut away tissue before the bone would be sawed.

By: abc

abc — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:59:05 +0000

OK so where do pliers with a hole the size of… say a bone, fit in? Oh and by the way those pliers are perforated so that they won’t hold fluids. What’s that about?

I suspect that this device is accompanied by a leather biting strap.

Or maybe its an after the fact piece; something to protect the limb post operation. Like a shoe.

I am still not enjoying this.

By: Laura Bien

Laura Bien — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:03:23 +0000

Heh. Well, abc, of course there are several little tangents here that are also part of the story…antisepsis versus anti-antisepsis advocates, private charity organizations, Louis Pasteur for a minute there, Detroit prosthesis kingpins, &c. :)

By: abc

abc — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:38:53 +0000

“…that somehow relates to this week’s story…”???

Really! Oh my god, you don’t want my guesses. Please go away David Cronenberg.