Burned by a belch

In 1890, Dr. James McNaught of Manchester reported in The British Medical Journal the strange case of a 24-year-old factory worker whose burp caught on fire while he was holding a match, badly burning his face and lips. McNaught managed to replicate the burning belch with the man in his office, confirming it really did happen. He diagnosed the problem as the "eructation of inflammable gas" from the man's stomach.

McNaught concluded that the man suffered from a disorder that caused food to ferment in his stomach and produce flammable gas, instead of being digested. He advised the man to eat foods that would pass more quickly out of his stomach, to avoid the fermentation.

More info: British Medical Journal, "A Case of Dilatation of the Stomach Accompanied by the Eructation of Inflammable Gas"

Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 21, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Health, Stomach, Smells and Odors

Follies of the Madmen #560

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 29, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Body, Cryptozoology, Health, Advertising, 1960s, 1970s

Asneezia, Part 2

Two weeks ago I posted about 'Asneezia,' which was the name that a doctor in India (G.D. Shukla) gave to the condition of being unable to sneeze. His non-sneezing patients also suffered from mental illness. He published his report about Asneezia in 1985.

I was somewhat skeptical about the reality of Asneezia. But yesterday, purely by chance, I came across the newspaper story below from 1958 about doctors at a New England psychiatric hospital who noted the odd fact that their patients never suffered from allergies, and so never sneezed. "If you hear a sneeze," one of them said, "you can know it's a staff member's."

As far as I know, Dr. Shukla (reporting about Asneezia in 1985) was unaware of this earlier report from 1958. But having two independent reports of a connection between not-sneezing and mental illness, from different times and different cultures, would seem to confirm the reality of the condition.

Boston Globe - June 16, 1958

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 07, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Health, Mental Health and Insanity

Asneezia

In a 1985 report published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Dr. G.D. Shukla brought a new condition to the attention of the medical community — the inability to sneeze. He named this 'Asneezia'. The sufferers were 'Asneezics'. His original article is behind a paywall, but a summary from Brain/Mind Bulletin is below:

Brain/Mind Bulletin - July 1990

Later correspondents to the British Journal of Psychiatry were skeptical. One questioned whether Shukla's patients really suffered from this condition, or if they were simply delusional. Another proposed verifying the reality of Asneezia by exposing patients to "the most noxious inhalant allergen."

Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 21, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Health, Psychology

The Health Dangers of Sleeping on a Hartmann Line

My Great Aunt recently died at the age of 100. Throughout her life she was very much into alternative medicine, and she kept hundreds of newsletters from various alt-health practitioners. Most of them aren't particularly interesting, but while going through her stuff I've found a few oddities, such as a 1990 newsletter warning of the danger of sleeping on Hartmann Lines.

I'd never heard of Hartmann Lines. Wikipedia describes them as "a scientifically unproven grid of invisible energy lines of the Earth's inherent radiation".

But how to know if you're sleeping on a Hartmann line? Well, if you've got a cat and it likes to sleep in your bed, you may be in trouble because apparently cats love sleeping on Hartmann lines. (I'm in trouble!)

I've posted a few snippets from the newsletter below, and also uploaded the full newsletter as a pdf file.

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 24, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Health, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Cats

An unusual rectal foreign body

An article recently published in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports describes the case of an unusual foreign body (a dumbbell) removed from a patient's rectum. It also provides a brief overview of the phenomenon of unusual foreign bodies that end up in rectums:

Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 23, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Health, Surgery, Sex Toys

Hit Hand, Regained Sight

June 1955: Peter Barr struck the palm of his left hand with his right fist to stress a point while arguing with his wife. And suddenly he was able to see again. He had been completely blind for three years.

London Daily Telegraph - June 3, 1955

Other cases of accidental cures we've previously posted about:

• the man who regained his sight after a fall
• the woman whose sneeze cured her deafness
• The man whose blindness, deafness, and baldness was cured by lightning
• Blind Man Spontaneously Regains Sight After 30 Years

Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 16, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Health, 1950s, Eyes and Vision

Pneumonia Blouse

In the early twentieth century, women began wearing low-necked, gauzy blouses. Conservative critics branded them "pneumonia blouses" — warning that they would cause the women wearing them to catch pneumonia.

More info: Jonathan Walford's blog

Example of a pneumonia blouse
Source: Holly Vogue Vintage

I often see young women out and about, dressed completely inappropriately for the cold weather, suffering for the sake of fashion. So the spirit of the pneumonia blouse seems to be alive and well, if not the specific style.

Victorian to Vamp: Women's Clothing 1900-1929, by Paula Jean Darnell

University Daily Kansan - Mar 18, 1920

Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 05, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Fashion, Health, 1900s

The Artesian Tree

I can find no fuller account of this miracle. No doubt it was bulldozed long ago.

ADDENDUM: I just did the obvious and visited the address given via Google Streetview. No sign of the fabled tree, alas. See screenshot in extended.





More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 15, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Health, Regionalism, Natural Wonders

The Patented Carrot Rectal Dilator

In 1927, the Canadian patent office granted an unusual patent (CA 259317) to George L. Kavanagh. It was unusual because, while most patents describe some new type of gadget or gizmo, Kavanagh's invention simply consisted of a method of using a carrot.

The problem Kavanagh had set out to solve was that of constipation in the elderly. The way he saw it, our rectums tend to grow more inelastic and shrunken as we age, and this leads to constipation. The solution, he concluded, was "gently dilating the anus and rectum until the organs are restored to their youthful size."

But what could be used as a dilator? Preferably something inexpensive and readily obtainable. That made him think of carrots.

A summary from his patent:


An added benefit of carrots, he noted, was that they come in a variety of different sizes. This would allow one to start with small carrots and work up to larger ones "until the desired result is obtained."

Unfortunately, Kavanagh submitted no drawings with his patent. But I did find a chart that provides a size comparison of different types of carrots, which could be potentially useful for anyone who wants to try out Kavanagh's method at home on an elderly relative.

image source: 123rf.com

Update: Kavanagh also got a US Patent (No. 1,525,505) for his invention.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 24, 2021 - Comments (3)
Category: Health, Inventions, Patents, Vegetables, 1920s