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Ann Thorac Surg 2004;77:756
© 2004 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Correspondence

Statue with clubbed feet: another reading

Bernard G. Vasseur, MD

Department of Surgery, Division of Thoracic Surgery, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey– Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, One Robert Wood Johnson Place, PO Box 19, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA

Philippe Lerch, BS, Marc L. Sage, JD

Surgeons of Hope Foundation, Inc, 825 Eighth Ave, Worldwide Plaza, 35th Floor, New York, NY 10019, USA

e-mail: bernard.vasseur{at}umdnj.edu

To the Editor:

It was with great interest that we read the letter by Roux and colleagues [1]. In this correspondence, the authors postulated that a congenital heart disease contributed to the fall of the Khmer empire. They established their hypothesis on the appearance of statues with clubbed feet at the Angkor Thom temple at the time of the decline of Cambodian splendor in Southeast Asia (15th century). Yet nowhere in history is there an example of a congenital heart disease influencing an entire civilization.

We propose another explanation: a respected sculptor of the time may have observed a single man or woman, possibly within a socially prominent family, with a cyanotic congenital heart defect. The accurate and masterful reproduction of the model's features may have been sufficient to generate, among peers and student sculptors, a persistent trend in foot sculpture.

At the Phnom Penh National Museum, a collection of statues of Buddha illustrates this ability of Khmer artists to reproduce the minute details of the work of their elders. Carved in wood, silver, or gold, the statues exhibit over the centuries remarkably similar facial traits (J. P. Lesbre, C. Prigent: personal communication, 2002, Phnom Penh Heart Institute, Cambodia); perhaps again the original sculptor inspired generations of related creations. This is indeed not unique to the world of art. For instance, through the generations, thoracic surgeons perpetuate the operative technique of one master surgeon. Again we congratulate the authors for their fine observation and their work in the changing field of humanitarian medicine [2–4].

References

  1. Roux D., Brouchet L., Diana C., et al. The diseased statues. Ann Thorac Surg 2002;74:973.[Free Full Text]
  2. Cohen A.J., Tamir A., Houri S., et al. Save a child's heart: we can and we should. Ann Thorac Surg 2001;71:462-468.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  3. Cox J.L. Presidential address: changing boundaries. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2001;122:413-418.[Free Full Text]
  4. Kalangos A. "Hearts for All":: a humanitarian association for the promotion of cardiology and cardiac surgery in developing countries. Ann Thorac Surg 2002;73:341.[Free Full Text]




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