Treatment Ordinary but Patient Kept Under Wraps

The hospital treatments were a limited success. The patient, after all, had been dead for about 3,000 years. Basa, the Ordinary Priest of Montu, lived sometime between 900 and 700 BC. His mummy was taken by ambulance from its home at the Museum of Fine Arts to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for X-rays and CAT-scans that doctors hoped would increase understanding of the mummification process and the medical problems and practices of ancient Egypt. “It’s certainly the stillest patient,” ambulance attendant Joe Kenneally said as he and a colleague unloaded Basa’s black coffin. Dr. Myron Marx, the radiologist conducting the study, said modern technology allows researchers to study the mummies without destroying them, as occurred when earlier researchers unwrapped them. The CAT-scan provides three-dimensional images of the subject. “See, he had a fracture on his right forearm,” Marx said. “It’s the kind of injury you can get warding off blows.” Marx said 11 other mummies and four mummified heads have been scanned previously. “The skin was black but you could look at their skin, facial expressions. You really get a sense of what they looked like.”

--David Kiner of Albany, N.Y., believes that “if you can make it to New York, you can make it anywhere.” What he means is making it the hard way. Kiner, 41, walked 130 miles down the Hudson River--from the state capital in Albany to the tip of Manhattan. And in the process, his six-day stroll on a pair of airtight kayak shoes apparently set a world record. “No one has ever done this before,” he said Saturday, after setting foot on land at Battery Park. “I feel real good.” The deed was done by “skijakking,” walking on the water in pontoons known as Skijaks. The skijakker uses cross-country skiing body motions to propel the Skijaks. “It looks like ice skating on water,” said one bystander.

--A Wisconsin drunk-driving suspect had his day in court, but it just wasn’t his day. Valentine Platek, 60, acting as his own attorney, downed four gin and tonics during a recess and then told jurors he wanted to show how well he could still function. Judge J. Tom Merriam put the brakes on the maneuver when Platek asked for a Breathalyzer test. The Washington County jury returned its verdict in just 27 minutes: guilty. Platek was sentenced to 10 days in jail and fined $585. His license was revoked for six months, and he was ordered to take alcohol counseling. It was his second conviction. On his way to his rural West Bend home, Platek was ticketed for driving with a revoked license.