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After 03:58 in this YouTube clip from Star Trek TOS episode Journey to Babel there's a moment where McCoy is performing surgery on Sarek using a static medical arch-like device over Sarek's chest.

At one moment smoke can be seen rising from behind the device, at least in this particular YouTube clip.

Question: Why can smoke be seen coming from McCoy's surgery on Sarek? Is this in-universe smoke, or perhaps a short circuit in a prop, or does DeForest Kelley have a cigarette back there and is sneaking puffs between takes?

from Star Trek TOS episode Journey to Babel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INkQsOvrmLo

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    Mentioned but not explained in the Nitpicker's Guide - "It almost looks as if someone has a cigarette back there."
    – Organic Marble
    Oct 7, 2021 at 4:42
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    worth noting that its also asked on movies.stackexchange.com/questions/78130/… - my answer (the correct one imo ;) wasn't there so I added it after answering here
    – NKCampbell
    Oct 7, 2021 at 4:55
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    @OrganicMarble ya it really does look just like that. I wonder, did DeForest Kelley smoke? Actually... did anybody not smoke back then?
    – uhoh
    Oct 7, 2021 at 12:29
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    @OrganicMarble - i.pinimg.com/originals/49/86/5f/…
    – NKCampbell
    Oct 7, 2021 at 13:41
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    @uhoh I was alive back then, and older than many kids who start smoking, and I have never smoked. The surgeon general's report that smoking caused lung cancer came out in 1964, several years earlier, so people who were not already addiction to nicotine had a good not to try it, and many did not.
    – M. A. Golding
    Oct 7, 2021 at 17:15

1 Answer 1

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According to StarTrek.com it's a deliberate effect intended as "cryogenic fog" from the cryogenic-surgery (mispronounced as 'serogenic' in the episode)

Question: In “Journey to Babel,” Sarek (Mark Lenard) becomes critically ill while being transported on the Enterprise and, according to Mr. Spock, needs a “serogenic” surgical procedure on his heart to repair it. What’s a serogenic surgical procedure?

Answer: That’s a good question. Checking the script, it appears that the word “cryogenic” – which relates to very low temperatures – was mispronounced as serogenic by Nimoy. Here’s the dialogue from the script:

SPOCK

I’d say a cryogenic open-heart procedure is the logical approach.

As further proof that the word cryogenic was intended, the surgery that McCoy (DeForest Kelley) later performs on Sarek makes use of a “cryosurgical frame” that generates fog from condensed atmospheric water caused by the very cold temperature. (The effect was likely created by the effects team using smoke or dry ice).

hat-tip to https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/journey-to-babel-deforest-kelley-smoking.300756/ for the link

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    Wow there's a real world heart treatment called cryoablation that is used to kill tissue causing crazy nerve signals. youtu.be/z91_9Si4wQ0
    – lucasbachmann
    Oct 7, 2021 at 5:35
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    @lucasbachmann - the StarTrek.com article quoted claims that it is "cryogenic" in the script. And the medicine to ramp up blood cell production was taken by Spock, so that he could be a blood donor during the surgery, as they did not have the right type (or enough of it) in the blood bank.
    – Basya
    Oct 7, 2021 at 7:32
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    I'm guessing that "cryogenic" got either misspelt or misread as "cyrogenic". That would sound like "serogenic".
    – A. B.
    Oct 7, 2021 at 8:45
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    @lucasbachmann if we're being pedantic, a serogenic procedure would be one that generated serum or would describe something created by serum. Since serum does not contain blood cells, if you were to coin a word for a procedure whose aim is to ramp up blood production, you'd opt for something like haematogenic instead or, more likely, the word actually used in our world for such processes: hematopoietic. Either way, serogenic would not be related to blood cells.
    – terdon
    Oct 7, 2021 at 16:09
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    It is worth noting that McCoy talks about filtering out the human elements of Spock's blood that you do see tubes with red and green fluids in them.
    – Emsley Wyatt
    Oct 7, 2021 at 17:12

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