52 #40: A Medical Review
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To rescue his niece, John Henry Iron (Steel) and the Teen Titans break into Lexcorp and battle their way through Lex’s goons and the remaining members of Infinity Inc. until Steel confront Lex Luthor in his office:
Lex Luthor to Steel: You have four broken ribs and a ruptured appendix. Your small intestine is leaking fecal matter into your blood stream. Trust me–I have x-ray vision.
Let’s take a closer look at the injuries Lex claims that John Henry Irons has suffered:
broken ribs: Most likely suffered when he was being crushed by Everyman. Broken ribs are painful and will take several weeks to heal, but they are not usually dangerous. Rib fractures can be more serious if several ribs are broken in multiple places resulting in a flail chest, or if the broken ribs are pushed far out of place and are sharp enough to lacerate the lungs, but thankfully both of these injuries are very rare.
ruptured appendix: Most likely injured by the hammer through the abdomen. The appendix may not serve much of a function, but a ruptured one can lead to serious problems such as peritonitis. This will require surgical repair.
small intestine: An injured small intestine may leak intestinal contents into the abdomen, but not into the blood stream. The circulatory system has evolved in such a way that foreign matter doesn’t “leak” into it, even in a trauma situation. An injury leaking intestinal contents into the abdomen is serious and a surgical emergency. The intestinal contents have digestive enzymes that cause inflammation of the peritoneum, and bacteria which infect it. Surgery drainage and repair along with high-dose antibiotics are needed, and the sooner the better.
A nit-pick, but digested food in the intestine is “chyme” and doesn’t become “fecal matter” until well into the large intestine.
Lex is a shrewd businessman and a good scientist, but he’s not a doctor. His descriptions are off in places, and I suspect this is because he’s being his normal condescending self and trying to look like he knows more than he does — he ends up using the wrong terms and describing unlikely injuries. In fact, if you glance at the scene in question, he’s not even looking at Steel when he “diagnoses” him.
I wonder about how good x-ray vision really is. I know it’s been established that x-ray vision better than a regular medical x-ray, but those are some pretty specific injuries Lex is describing. I would need to order a CT scan with oral contrast to diagnose those. But then again, how much is the x-ray vision, and how much is Lex just gloating/bluffing?
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