President Bush will undergo a routine colonoscopy Saturday, and will transfer power to Vice President Dick Cheney during the procedure, expected to take about two and a half hours, the chief White House spokesman said.
So says a July 20, 2007 CNN report. Colonoscopy enthusiasts will recall our pocket history of colonoscopy booms, which begins:
Here is a brief guide to some unfortunate explosions of a particular type. The details sit quietly in back issues of medical journals. Only occasionally does anyone come to see them. The visitor is, in most cases, either a doctor in sudden need of information or a scholar in search of violent titillation.
BOOM (Italy, 1952) – Unusual Complication in Electrosurgery: Explosion of Gases in the Cecum During Operation of Cecal Fistula, by G Pezzuoli and C Ghiringhelli (published in L’Ospedale Maggiore, September 1952).
BOOM (Spain, 1964) – Pneumatic Explosion of the Cecum in Patients with Carcinoma of the Colon, by N Antonelli and E Borenstein (in Prensa M?dica Argentina, October 1964)….