Medical trivia quiz hosted by me during KARMIC 2015 -- the annual national medical students' conference at Apollo Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Apollo Health CIty, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad.

1. Medical Quiz
PRELIMINARY ROUND
Dr. Basalathullah

2. ANSWERS

3. 1.
What is common to the following:
• Rosalia Virus Disease (RVD)
• Rigellian Fever
• The Red Death
• Torsonic Polarity Syndrome (TPS)
• Dragon Pox
• Irumodic Syndrome

4. Fictional/ Non-existing/ Unreal
diseases!
From literature and movies:
E. A. Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death
(The Red Death),
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix (Dragon Pox),
Star Trek (Irumodic Syndrome, Rigellian
Fever),

5. Torsonic Polarity
Syndrome

6. 2.
Julius Wagner-Jauregg won the 1927 Nobel
Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his rather
crude treatment of dementia paralytica or
neuro-syphilis, especially the optic atrophy, by
introducing another disease in the body of the
patients. His advocacy of eugenics and Nazism
later downgraded his public appeal. What was
his treatment modality called?

7. Pyrotherapy/ Artificial fever/
Malariotherapy/ Introduction of
Plasmodium vivax
Higher than normal temperature in the
body due to malaria fever is deleterious for
the bacteria.

8. Patient being inoculated with malaria
parasites....

10. 3.
Thinking of the names of 7 bald men, biting on
a lemon, pulling hard on your tongue, having
someone frighten you, drinking water with two
straws, are all the ways that have been said to
abort an episode of a benign hiccoughs.
However, there is one medically proven way
of doing so without having to take any drug.
What is the said method?

12. Digital Rectal Massage/
Stimulation
Who wouldn’t like that?

14. 4.
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your I sweep and in your soot I sleep....
And so he was quiet, and that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.
‘Songs of Innocence’, William

15. In 1775, a British surgeon noticed a rise in incidence of
a particular disease at his clinic in St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital. Extending on Bernadino Ramazzini’s theory
of morbis artificum, he realised that the this disease was
due to a causative factor his patients were exposed to.
His observations were ground-breaking and laid down
the fundamental principles of the aetiology of these
diseases. The extract is from Blake’s famous poem
whose title identifies the group of people who suffered
from this disease. What is the title of the poem?

16. The Chimney Sweeper
Sir Percivall Pott linked scrotal cancer to
the exposure of grime and ash from
chimney soot, which was earlier dismissed
as a venereal disease. The first ever
carcinogen was discovered. The sad plight
of the London’s climbing-boys led to the
passage in 1788 of the Chimney Sweepers
Act by the British Parliament, which raised
the minimum employable age to eight
years, and subsequently to fourteen.

17. Sir Percivall Pott, Kt.

18. This is not ‘cute’by any means.

19. 5.
What was this grotesque mask used to treat in
ancient times?

20. Treatment of Squint/ Strabismus
(Convergent)
'Ophthalmodouleia' by French
ophthalmologist Georg Bartisch (1535-
1636) published in Dresden in 1583.

21. 6.
An Indian biochemist is credited with being the first
to isolate the ‘energy currency’ of the cell. His
famous contribution, however, is to the 1-C
metabolism of folic acid, and the discovery of the
widely used drug methotrexate. His stellar
contributions were not acknowledged and he was
denied tenure at Harvard. He went on to discover
another widely used drug, an anti-helminthic, which
was also adopted by the WHO. Name the drug he

22. Diethycarbamazine (DEC)/
Hetrazan
Yellapragada Subbarow discovered the role
of ATP, phospho-creatinine and other high-
energy phosphates. A fungus was
named Subbaromyces splendens in his
honour by the American Cyanamid. In all
fairness, it is the ATP which should be
named after him!

24. 7.
Iridology, Rolfing, Bowen technique, Reiki,
Alexander technique, and Macrobiotics are all
types of what?

25. Complementary/ Alternate
Medicine

27. 8.
Alfred Blalock, widely known for his contributions
to shock, along with African-American surgical
assistant Vivien Thomas performed a ground-
breaking surgery in 1944 at Johns Hopkins
Hospital, that ushered in the era of modern cardiac
surgery. They developed it in collaboration with the
cardiologist, Helen Taussing. An HBO movie about
his life starring Alan Rickman won Emmy awards.
What was the condition the surgery was used to
treat?

28. Tetralogy of Fallot/ Blue Baby
Syndrome
Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt is done to
bypass the coarction of the aorta. Taussig
founded the speciality of paediatric
cardiology. Blalock was the Chief of
Surgery. Vivien Thomas’contribution was
unacknowledged for several years due to
‘racism’. He served as supervisor of
Surgical Laboratories and was awarded a
doctorate in 1976.

29. Alan Rickman and Mos Def in
‘Something the Lord Made’.

30. 9.
In 16th and 17th century, a chic fashion statement
was born when the epidemic of a disease swept
across Europe. When Louis XIV, the King of
France and his cousin Charles II of England
starting flaunting it, it soon became an essential
part of clothing of the western European aristocrat
until late 18th century. The fashion statement also
explains the etymology of the word ‘bigwig’.
What disease was responsible for this fashion

31. Syphilis/ Cupid’s Disease
Also called Cupid’s disease, English
disease, French disease, pen sores, rashes
and patchy hair-loss caused due to syphilis were
hidden by
the use of powdered wigs called Perukes. The
cost of wigs increased, and perukes became a
scheme for flaunting wealth. French citizens
ousted the peruke during the Revolution, and
Brits stopped wearing wigs after William Pitt
levied a tax on hair powder in 1795.

33. Jamie Dornan of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’sporting a
peruke in Sofia Coppola’s movie Marie Antoinette;
when he actually did good roles...

34. 10.
Identify the device or the type of surgery
performed with the aid of this device.

35. OCTOPUS
Beating Heart/ Off-Pump
Surgery
The challenge in beating heart surgery is
that it can be difficult to suture or "sew".
The surgeon must use a "stabilization"
system to keep the heart steady. Medtronic’s
Octopus, Sea Urchin and Starfish are the
various stabilizers available.

37. No relation to Doctor

38. 11.
What neurosurgical technique is being performed
on this patient?

39. Awake Craniotomy
This is a preferred technique for operations to
remove lesions close to, or involving eloquent
(functionally important) regions of the brain.
This allows to test regions of the brain before
manipulation and to test the patient’s function
continuously throughout the surgery.
The picture is of Brad Carter, Hollywood actor
and musician. He underwent Deep Brain
Stimulation to cure his Benign Essential
Tremors.

40. 12.
A longest muscle in the human body is also called
“The Tailor’s Muscle”. There are three hypotheses as
to the genesis of the name: One is that this name was
chosen in reference to the cross-legged position in
which tailors once sat. Another is that it refers to the
location of the inferior portion of the muscle being
the “inseam” or area of the inner thigh tailors
commonly measure when fitting a pant. A third is that
the muscle closely resembles a tailor’s ribbon. What
muscle is it?

41. The Sartorius
The most fashionable muscle of the body
goes down the length of the thigh in the
anterior compartment. Its upper portion
forms the lateral border of the femoral
triangle. Derived from the Greek word
‘Sartos’, meaning tailor.

43. 13.
What is unique about the following eponyms?
• Huntington’s disease
• Thomsen’s disease
• Jones’ fracture
• Cairron’s disease
• Trousseau’s sign

44. Auto-eponyms
Disease first described by scientists who
actually suffered from it.

46. 14.
A 19th century Frenchwoman also called ‘Widow
Sunday’, had one of the most famous skin neoplasms
ever. She was successfully operated upon by the
famous French surgeon Joseph Souberbielle, who was
the personal doctor of Queen Marie Antoinette. She
sold cresson de fontaine in the streets of Paris. A wax
model of her head taken after her death is on display
at the Mutter museum of the College of Physicians of
Philadelphia, USA. What was the name of this
woman?

47. Madame Dimanche
Famous illustration of Hamilton Bailey and
McNeill Love’s—A Short Practice of Surgery.
She suffered from Cutaneous Horn or Cornu
Cutaneum.

49. 15.
Which structure has the highest concentration of
protein content among the tissues of the body?

50. The Lens
Really! Check out Parsons’Diseases of the
Eye, Section IV, Chapter 18: Lens

52. 16.
Dr. Ken Heaton at the University of Bristol
designed a visual medical aid, sometimes called
the ‘Meyers scale’ to use the form of the stool as a
‘surrogate measure of colon transit time’. It is
however now believed to be of limited validity,
but remains in use as a research tool to evaluate
the effectiveness of treatments for various
diseases of the bowel, as well as a clinical
communication aid.

53. Bristol Stool Chart
Its basically just full of shit!

55. 17.
In 1913, a Greek doctor emigrated to United
States to live the American dream. He worked
initially as a carpet salesman in New York. After
months he managed to secure a research position
at Cornell University. He had a rather surreal job:
studying the menstrual cycle of guinea pigs. After
a decade of scrapings and slide-study in guinea
pigs and humans, what he propounded through his
studies laid down the foundations of branch in
medicine, and his discovery has been credited
with saving the lives of countless women. What is
he famous for?

56. George Papanicolaou
Famous for the ‘Pap test’, a form of
exfoliative cytology. Papanicolaou’s wife
Maria let him take her own cervical
smears for months.

58. 18.
In late 19th century, the drowned corpse of a young woman
was recovered from the River Seine in France. A pathologist
at the morgue was entranced with the enigmatic half-smile
and he had her death mask made. Before long, it became
famous and the young woman's face was sold as ‘Inconnue
de la Seine’. In 1955 Asmund Laerdal, a Norwegian
toymaker was approached to make a training aid for the
newly invented technique of CPR, he created a whole body
mannequin, and decided to put the face of a mask he saw on
the wall of his grandparents' house. What is the CPR
mannequin called as?

59. Resusci Annie/ Rescue Anne/
CPR Annie
‘Inconnue de la Seine’, also known in the
America as ‘La Belle Italienne’is the other
Mona Lisa in France; and quite ironically,
although her likenesses have been mock-
resuscitated millions of times, she had to
die such a death. Resusci Anne was
developed by Laedral, and Drs. Peter Safar
and James Elam.

62. 19.
A structural biologist of Indian origin won the
2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry ‘for studies of the
structure and function of ribosomes’. He has
recently been elected to a post currently held by
Sir Paul Nurse. He joins the likes of Sir Isaac
Newton, Sir Humphrey Davy, Sir Joseph Lister,
and The Lord Ernest Rutherford to be accorded
this honour. What seat, which he’ll take up from
30th November, 2015, was he elected to?

63. President of Royal Society (PRS)
Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Bt., is an
Indian-born American and British scientist,
currently working at the MRC Molecular
Biology Laboratory, Cambridge. He
revealed that he could not make it to any of
Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs). He
will take over as PRS from Sir Paul Nurse,
the Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of
cyclins.

65. 20.
Sergio Canavero, an Italian neurosurgeon recently
published an article in Surgical Neurology International
about a radical neurosurgical technique inspired by the
1970s experiments on Rhesus by Dr. Robert White. The
procedure proposed and outlined by him, dubbed the
‘HEAVEN’ brought him international fame and criticism.
He concedes that although ethical dilemmas are aplenty,
‘the horrible conditions without a hint of hope of
improvement cannot be relegated to the dark corner of
medicine’. What surgery does he propose to do?

66. Head Transplantation/ Full-body
Transplantation
Sergio Canavero claims that the time has come
to perform head transplants for incurable
diseases. The procedure involves cooling the
brain of the donor and the spine of the recipient
to very low temperatures, and among other
neurosurgical complexities involves the use of
fusogens to connect brain and the spine. The
procedure will involve a 100 surgeons working
for 36 hours at an estimated cost of $11.8
millions.

67. The research paper was titled, HEAVEN:
Head Anostomosis Venture Project Outline.

68. Not such a bad idea after
all!

69. 21.
What is the eponymous name of these curves?

70. Guyton Curves
Named after the famous and the well known
legendary author of ‘Textbook of Medical
Physiology’, Arthur C. Guyton. These curves
were a part of his contribution to the
understanding of cardiac physiology. Students
are so well versed with these now-obvious graph
that the eponym is hardly ever used.