Morning Musically-Minded, Medically-Minded, Masticators!
(Today’s post is sponsored by the letter “M”)
Over the past 600+ episodes, The Simpsons has taken us on an amazing journey involving music, science, and food to name a few concepts.
And what better way to start your week, then by discussing some of these concepts Monday morning?
So let’s get started this week by talking about a common medical treatment, iodine.
In the thirty fourth episode of The Simpsons, Three Men and a Comic Book (Season 02, Episode 21), after attending a comic book convention, Bart becomes obsessed with purchasing a rare Radioactive Man comic book. However, he doesn’t have enough money to purchase it.
So like any young entrepreneur short on cash, he gets a job doing chores for the elderly Mrs. Glick. Unfortunately those chores (such as removing weeds, cleaning the gutters, etc.) often lead to cuts and scrapes.
Mrs. Glick generously, and much to Bart’s chagrin, applies iodine on Bart’s cuts and scrapes. This results in Bart feeling a burning painful sensation. To make matters worse, after numerous hours of arduous labour, Bart is compensated with $0.50.
Eventually with the help of Martin and Milhouse, the three boys pool their money to get the comic book. But they end up buying more than what they bargain for.
But have you ever wondered what iodine is?
Iodine
Iodine is a halogen antiseptic. Antiseptics are disinfecting agents with sufficiently low toxicity for host cells that they can be used directly on skin, mucous membranes, or wounds.
Iodine in a 1:20,000 solution is bactericidal in 1 minute and kills spores in 15 minutes. Gram positive bacteria and Gram negative bacteria are highly susceptible to iodine. Like spores. acid-fast bacteria are susceptible, but at high concentrations.
As for viruses, lipophilic viruses are susceptible to iodine. However, hydrophilic viruses are resistant to iodine. As for other organisms, fungi are susceptible to iodine, amebic cysts are susceptible to iodine, but prions are resistant to iodine.
The use of iodine as a pre-operative antiseptic dates back to the dawn of the 20th century. Croatian surgeon Dr. Antonio Grossich used it as early as 1908 and British surgeon Dr. Lionel Stretton published his use of iodine in the British Medical Journal in 1909.
Iodine is the most active antiseptic for intact skin. However, it is not commonly used due to serious hypersensitivity reactions that may occur, and due to its staining of clothes and dressings.
One of the more common topical antiseptics used in hospitals is Betadine (povidone-iodine). Betadine is an iodophor, a complex of iodine with a surface-active agent. Iodophors are less irritating and less likely to produce skin hypersensitivity than iodine.
Now that we’ve learned more about iodine, be sure to come back next week when we continue our Monday morning musings with the next episode of The Simpsons.
And don’t forget to vote in this weeks Bracket Battle!
Have you ever heard of iodine? Have you ever used iodine? Have you ever done chores/work and got way underpaid? What’s your favourite Simpsons medical reference? What about your favourite Simpsons Bart gets a job episode? Sound off in the comments below. You know we love hearing from you.