Three surgeons and a clumsy cook go camping in the remote wilderness. The clumsy cook stumbles over the campfire as he is serving the surgeons, injuring himself and dumping hot stew on the hands of the surgeons.

The cook's injuries need surgical treatment. The surgeons' injuries are minor but open. It turns out they brought the equipment necessary for the cook's surgery with them, and they can use the campfire to sterilize the tools. But there are only two rubber gloves. Because of the different surgeons' skills, all three of the surgeons are needed to operate on the cook, in sequence.

How can this be done without any of them being exposed to the blood of any of the others?

I'm not sure if i'm understanding the situation correctly, but if each surgeon only needs one glove to operate, and the requirement is that the glove must be clean to operate then I would say surgeon 1 uses the first glove. Surgeon 2 uses the second glove. Surgeon 3 then takes surgeon 1's glove and put's it on, and then takes surgeon 2's glove and turns it inside out and put's it over the other glove (leaving a clean glove on both sides) and finishes the operation up.

Posted by DuCk on 2003-07-21 02:30:56