Gulf News
  • 2 days ago
Read the full story here:

See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Transcript
00:00So my name is Dr. Adel Katena. I'm a consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon. The question
00:09is how did I develop an interest in medical antiques? This goes way back, maybe 20 years
00:16ago when I was a medical student and got interested in a small scarificator. It's like one of
00:26those really old devices that kind of scratches and makes the skin bleed. In the past, they
00:34thought that when you sacrifice some blood, the humors or the fluids in the body gets
00:41balanced and you'll get your health back. So that got me interested in old medicine
00:45and how medicine actually kind of developed. Ever since, I was just kind of everywhere
00:49I go, I just go to the antique markets and find all the medical devices or anything to
00:55do with medicine. And that just got worse, that addiction got worse and worse and worse.
01:00Developed to having so many pieces and so many items and devices. Got to the point where
01:07I was just storing them and then the idea came about where why don't I display them
01:11for my patients and the clients that come visit our centers and hospitals. So which
01:16I did and that's how the idea of the Katena Medical Museum came about. This museum is
01:22located in Kuwait, Shab area and that's the whole floor and it's for anybody to come and
01:28visit and there's no entrance fee. And you know, just come.
01:32Any plans of bringing the museum here to Dubai?
01:38In the future, yeah. In the future. I mean, we're just working out the logistics for now
01:41to see how we can move all these items down here to this hospital and then just kind of
01:47display them here.
01:48Could you highlight some of the pieces that you have?
01:51I mean, the recent purchase was what's called the Iron Lung. The Iron Lung. In the fifties
01:57there was this polio pandemic where a lot of people were getting, a lot of kids were
02:03getting paralyzed and they couldn't breathe. So they had to come up with this big huge
02:09tube cylinder that the patient would go in and basically spend the rest of their lives
02:14in that tube because that would help them breathe. Without this tube or what they call
02:21the Iron Lung, these patients would die for sure. So that was a recent purchase that I
02:25got from London. We also have like the oldest stethoscope, which is, you know, the stethoscope
02:31to have the auscultations of the heart. It's a French surgeon. The neck around like 200
02:37years ago, this guy was shy to put his head on female patients because, you know, so he
02:45created that. He got some cardboard paper and he kind of twisted around, made it into
02:50a cylinder and he started that way, trying to listen. And he found out not only that
02:56this kind of distanced him from the patient, but also the heart sounds were amplified and
03:01they were much better. So he came up with the first stethoscope. He made 20 pieces initially
03:06and we have one of them in the museum.
03:08And how do you acquire these stethoscopes?
03:10I mean, you just go on, nowadays it's so easy because you go on the nets and you search
03:14and you search and you search. This particular piece I bought from New York, from a collector
03:18in New York. So I had to travel to New York, meet the guy and get that stethoscope. It's
03:23made out of wood.
03:24Are they auctioned?
03:25No, they're not auctions. Sometimes they're, these things are never auctioned, but they,
03:32you know, they are in the possession, usually possession of dealers also, antique dealers
03:36and stuff like that.
03:37And they must be costing a hell of a lot.
03:39Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of them...
03:41What's the kind of range?
03:43I mean, that stethoscope was around $25,000, you know, but just a stethoscope.
03:47And what about this iron lung?
03:49Iron lung was, iron lung, I was very lucky because I've been looking for an iron lung
03:53for maybe like last five, six years. And there was a company in England, in London, that
04:01does props like, you know, for movies and stuff like that. And they had two iron lungs.
04:06But for the longest time, they would not sell them. They would not sell them. And until,
04:10you know, we kept on nagging and nagging, and then they just gave us one. So it was
04:14around like £10,000.
04:16And what is, you know, some of the most expensive items you've bought for the museum?
04:22I mean, there's a lot of different pieces, yeah. Stethoscope being one of them. We have
04:29a lot of old books, written 400, 500, 600 years ago. Handwritten, of course, in medicine
04:37that come out of, you know, Mecca and that area.
04:41And I understand that you have some devices and tools from World War II?
04:48Yeah, yeah. We have, I mean, you know, when the, you know, we have the kits that go into
04:54the fields, you know, where you can set up a whole operating room in the field to try
04:59and, you know, rescue all these injured soldiers and stuff.
05:04We have an interesting also display of actually swords, surgical swords. It was in the past,
05:14the bigger the surgeon, the more high-ranking the surgeon, the more, you know, detail he'd
05:21have on his sword. And of course, then they found out all this, you know, all the crevices
05:25up on the sword kind of harboured bacteria and stuff like that. So, yeah, they ended
05:31up killing more.
05:32So they were actual swords, not knives?
05:33Yeah, yeah. Like a sword, yeah. Like a sword, yeah. For amputations and stuff.
05:38What I get out of it is like, you know, it's like basically CSR, you know, so giving back
05:43to the community. I mean, we don't actually charge patients for coming in. We also have
05:49a couple of coordinators there that sit and explain everything to all the guests. So it's
05:55kind of giving back. So it's a win-win. I like collecting and then I also like sharing
06:01all these beautiful pieces with our guests.