Biomedical Ephemera, or: A Frog for Your Boils

Ganges River Platanista - Platanista gangetica

Also known as the blind river dolphin, Gangetic platanista, susu, bhulan, or South Asian river dolphin, this big-flippered, long-beaked, and sightless freshwater cetacean has about as much charm as a gharial with poked-out eyeballs - a far cry from its "charismatic" ocean-dwelling cousins.

But hey, at least the massive, curved, two-inch-long teeth don't last forever! No, if the dolphin lives more than a few years (never a sure thing in the over-trafficked and heavily polluted Ganges and Indus rivers), those skewers are broken and ground into little pegs, only adding to their charm. Though the big teeth help to catch and hold fish and shrimp when the dolphin is young, if they make it beyond their first decade, they're adept enough at catching prey that the little pegs are enough.

Note how big the melon on their foreheads is. Like all toothed whales, the susu uses echolocation to find its food, but unlike many of the others (such as oceanic dolphins), the susu lives its entire life in a very murky, dark environment. It finds mates (as they live most of their life alone, they don't have a pod to find females in or with), avoids predators, and conducts its entire life via echolocation, as its eyes are only capable of distinguishing light from dark.

Despite their less-than-charming looks, the susu is an integral part of the ecosystem in both the Ganges and Indus riverways, and is endangered in all parts of its habitat. There are less than 4000 individuals left in the wild, and none in captivity. Hunting for "traditional medicine" (yeah, these guys are "aphrodisiacs". Go ahead, try to wrap your head around that) and poisoning from pollution due to factory runoff are still their primary threats.

Nevertheless, the reduction of runoff in the Indus in the past decade, and subsequent rise in its dolphin population proves that we can save these creatures - none of the three subpopulations are at a level where they're safe, but all three can be salvaged if we just make a few changes. Not to mention, people use both of those rivers for water, bathing, and fishing. It really benefits everyone if we stop pouring chemical waste into them.

Older susu: "The Strange and  Beautiful River Dolphins." Kate H, September 2011.

Young adult susu skull cast: Children's Museum of Indianapolis via Wikimedia Commons

Susu illustration: Illustrations of Indian Zoology, Part 2. Major-General Hardwicke for John Edward Gray, 1833-1834.

Eqalussuaq [Inuit] - Somniosus microcephalus (The Greenland Shark)

The Greenland shark is big, slow, and an apex predator of the sea. Despite its top speed of not over 2 mph (and this fast only in short sprints - it generally moves under 1 mph), it is still the second-largest carnivorous fish on Earth, and has been found with polar bear, reindeer, narwhal, and even other sharks in its stomach. Of course, although the Greenland shark is decent at hunting sharks, (sleeping) seals, and fish in the water, the polar bear and reindeer remains are from carrion that drifted to the bottom of the ocean. It's an opportunistic predator, and will try to eat almost anything in its path.

Over 90% of the arctic Greenland sharks are hosts to the parasitic copepod Ommatokoita elongata (seen in the illustration), which has evolved to permanently attach themselves to the corneas of the genus Somnosius. They absorb nutrients through the blood vessels in the eyes and corneal fluid, and cause serious vision impairment in those affected by their presence. However, since the Greenland shark lives up to 7,200 ft (2,200 m) below the surface, it has little use of eyesight to begin with, and is believed to be largely unharmed by the presence of eyeball-sucking copepods tagging along on their corneas.

A History of the Fishes of the British Isles. Jonathan Couch, 1868.

Blind stenographer using a dictaphone, 1911. Part of a series of disabled people being an asset in the workplace. It was very pro-accommodation for the blind and deaf, and in some cases, paraplegic, given how good they apparently tended to be in the workplace. That may not sound like many of the "disabled" people who can be beneficial in the workplace today, but before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, some places in the United States were not willing to make ANY accommodation whatsoever...this was a very progressive stance, even if it didn't include every type of disability.

1865 engraving of Janesville, WI Institute for the Education of the Blind. 

There's a note on another photograph of this school that Louisa May Alcott attended school here, but that made no sense to me...I looked it up, and I don't think Alcott was ever even IN Wisconsin. She certainly didn't go to school at a school for the blind, since she was homeschooled by her father. 

I researched more on the school, and I can't find any notable attendees of it. The only major event or attendee I found was a fire there in 1865 that killed one dude who may have had epilepsy. Am I missing something major? Anyone who's knowledgeable on WI history feel free to let me know...

Fun Fact: Attendees of the school were called "inmates" in the news stories covering the fire.