The Docs With Odd Names Are In

Here’s something I found in my teetering “in tray” when it fell on top of me last week: a list of funny doctors’ names collected by medical librarians, and now kept and expanded (and verified for authenticity) by Mari Stoddard, health sciences librarian at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “The dentists--I feel very sorry for all the dentists,” she says when asked about her personal favorites. (We’re sure Dr. Harm, Dr. Hurter, Dr. Toothaker and Dr. Pain appreciate her solicitude.) Other highlights:

* Drs. Slaughter, Butcher, Hacker, Kutteroff and Rush, the surgeons.

* Drs. Bones and Bender, the chiropractors.

* Drs. Skinner and Whitehead, the dermatologists.

* Drs. Foote, Cornfield, Shoemaker and Smellsey, the podiatrists.

Propriety prohibits us from listing the names of the urologists and gynecologists. You’re going to have to check them out yourself, by visiting https://educ.ahsl.arizona.edu/mla/doctor.htm.

The Body Eclectic:

Grab Bag of Bulletins

Here are some other items I found in last week’s avalanche of paper:

* A blurb about a slimming program that uses deep breathing as a way to lose weight. (After all, explains the blurb, you need oxygen to burn fat. Thus, if you breathe in more oxygen . . .)

* A package promoting $299 pendants, $399 clocks and a $329 device that acts as “your body’s tuning fork”--all of which use “sympathetic resonance technology” (we’d explain it better if we could) “to help boost and balance your body’s own energy while strengthening you against [electromagnetic fields.]”

* A little black box that--when turned on--makes a horrid, loud rumbling noise. This was a head scratcher at first, but we finally figured out it was the sound of someone snoring and had once upon a time been part of a press kit for a homeopathic snore cure.

* News from the makers of Tofurky Vegetarian Roast, a meatless alternative to the Thanksgiving turkey: This year, watch how you gobble. Tofurkies now come with edible wishbones, or wishstixs (yes, an “s” and an “x”), as Tofurky’s makers call them.

* Finally, at the bottom of the stack, we unearthed a flier informing us that Delta Air Lines’ “BusinessElite travelers” can now order Ideal Performance Meals (pan-roasted duck, warm roasted portabello mushrooms and more). The meals, the airline tells us, help the brain release mood-enhancing hormones to help you stay relaxed and alert. Not sure I’d want to stay alert on a 10-hour, transatlantic flight. For “relaxed,” some might prefer the good old gin and tonic.

Juicy Tidbits About the Pomegranate

Just thinking about what an airline catering service’s version of pan-roasted duck or a warm, roasted portabello mushroom might taste like has set our stomachs churning. Here’s some more health food news to help clear your mental palate.

Pomegranates, say Israeli researchers, are good for you. They’re stuffed with antioxidant chemicals that neutralize harmful free-radical chemicals, and may help fight heart disease and cancer. Pomegranates, say the scientists, contain more potent chemicals of this type than does red wine, celebrated as a heart-disease fighter.

What’s the best way to eat pomegranates? Me, I like the fill-your-mouth-with-seeds-and-crunch method, but people who prefer not to spatter chin and clothes with red juice might appreciate this info from Rafigh Pooya. He owns Caspian Cuisine in Santa Monica, a restaurant specializing in dishes from lands bordering the Caspian Sea--such as Iran and Azerbaijan, where pomegranate trees grow widely.

Pooya loves eating the fruit plain (though the ones over here aren’t nearly as good as the ones over there, he says), but you can also buy pomegranate juice to drink, in Iranian stores, as well as pomegranate syrup for use in cooking. The most popular dish in his restaurant? Duck fesenjan or duck cooked in a sauce of pomegranates. And in Azerbaijan, he says, “if they bring you the sturgeon without the pomegranate sauce, it feels like they brought you an incomplete food.”