Surreal to sublime medical trivia

By Michelle Roberts
BBC News health reporter

Dr Panja's book contains hundreds of facts

Ever wonder which famous cereal was invented by a surgeon with the intention to lessen sex drive and prevent the urge to masturbate?

How about why doctors wear white coats?

Dr Ayan Panja, a London GP, did and has listed and answered these and many other quirky medical questions and facts in a book.

He says An Essential Medical Miscellany, published by the Royal Society of Medicine, should appeal to anyone, but particularly "hypochondriacs and people swotting up for pub quizzes".

NON-EROTIC CEREAL Surgeon John Kellogg created cornflakes with the intention to lessen sex drive Source: An Essential Medical Miscellany

"A couple of Christmases ago I was given two books as presents by different people. One was a music trivia book and one was a booked called Quotable Osler - he was one of history's most famous physicians.

"I read and enjoyed them and got to thinking that there was nothing out there that was fun yet factual for medicine."

He said it took him a few weeks to put most of the ideas down on paper, but a year to research, write and publish the finished book.

"Hopefully it will appeal to everyone because health is something that people are morbidly fascinated in.

"People who are interested in medicine, perhaps medical students, doctors and all of my friends who are hypochondriacs will love it."

Surreal facts

He said his personal favourite piece of medical trivia was the fact that the youngest doctor to qualify was a man called Dr Ambati who was only 17 years old at the time.

OTHER MEDICAL TRIVIA The white coat has come to symbolise healing and authority Vasectomies take 15-30 minutes The word ambulance comes from the French hôpital ambulant meaning 'walking hospital' Aspirin is found naturally in the bark of willow trees

He graduated in 1995 from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

"He would have had to have started studying medicine at the age of 12, which is very worrying," said Dr Panja.

Gymnophobia means a fear of nudity, while pantophobia is a fear of everything, rather than pants or pantomimes as the name might suggest.

The white coat was first worn by 19th Century physicians working in laboratories. Thanks to their medical advances, patients began to survive their stays in hospital.

Hospitals had been associated with almost certain death before then. Therefore, the white coat came to symbolise healing and authority and remains a popular attire with doctors around the world today.

Dr Panja's book also contains more practical information, such as the best way to prevent death from heart attacks, strokes and blood clots.

In ranking order, he says these are:

• Eating a Mediterranean diet
• Eating oily fish
• Stopping smoking
• Taking a statin (cholesterol-lowering drug)
• Taking a beta-blocker
• Taking an aspirin

The book also includes a section on the many benefits of taking regular exercise, which can improve sleep, concentration and libido, cut depression and has been shown to be more effective than drugs at treating diabetes.

It is available from major bookselling outlets and via the Royal Society of Medicine website.