“UPSIDE DOWN” MAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 June 1937, Page 3

“UPSIDE DOWN” MAN

HAS MADE MEDICAL HISTORY Benjamin Sexton, .ik-year-old brewcis' lorry-driver, of Sidcup. Kent, has made a name for himself in medical history. His whole body is “upside down. Not only is "nis heart on the wrong 1 side but every other organ in his body i- reversed. Yet. he is perfectly healthy. His work entails the lifting of heavy barrels and he plays football and cricket. This was revealed when Sexton was X-rayed at Middlesex Hospital. London. a short time ago. The photographs proved that his case is unique I in medical history. t Now doctors and specialists are to | make a study of the “upside down matt." as he has been nicknamed. A further development in the case is that Sexton's six-year-old nephew. Brian Bolinger, of Bexley Heath, also has his heart on the wrong side. Mr. Sexton, a very puzzled man. talked to the “Sunday Chronicle' about his "case." “I don't know what is wrong with

me.' iie said. "I have never hail a day s illness in my life. I served in tin- Army and the doctors passed me as O.K. “When I joined this firm four years ago. the doctor who examined me told me then that my heart was on the wrong side, but that I was perfectly all right. “But. apparently. 1 am till ‘upside down.' “Yet I do a great deal of hard work, lilting barrels about, and I plav vi’irket ami football without, fading any ill-effccts. “When I went to the Middlesex Hospital at the invitation of a welli known Harley Street, specialist I was I X-rayed and all the doctors present. seemed to thins. it was marvellous. ' “They told me that I had a com-

plete transposition of tin* viscera. The first in medical history. Now they want me to be. X-rayed again at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. “I really cannot see what all the fuss is about. 1 am • >!!■ right."