Med thought

Chinese man keeps himself alive for 13 years with HOMEMADE dialysis machine

Three times a week, Hu Songwen sits on a small toilet in his home in a rural east China town and fires up his homemade dialysis machine.

Hu, who suffers from kidney disease, made it from kitchen utensils and old medical instruments after he could no long afford hospital fees.

‘The cost for each home treatment is only 60 yuan (£6), which is 12 per cent of the hospital charge for dialysis,’ Hu said.

It’s alive!

Taken by Robert Ludlow of the University College London’s Institute of Neurology, this is a rare shot of a living brain, revealing the cerebral cortex of an epileptic patient during surgery. Oxygenated blood flushes bright red in a web of small arteries while larger veins, tucked in the sulci or crevices of the brain, carry away purplish, deoxygenated blood. Gray matter (so-dubbed because that’s its color after death) is pink with life.