WC2, 31st May 2008Monday, 21 June 2010
Monday, 17 May 2010
Bosom (or bowel) serpents
Snake in a Woman's Stomach
New York Times, July 10th 1864
The Lock-port Journal tells the following horrible story: A woman living in Mercer, C.W., the wife of Mr. WM. EVERS, has for four years past been afflicted with a singular difficulty in her stomach. Her complaint has until within a short time past, baffled the skill of physicians. The complaint commenced about four years since, with a tickling and uneasy sensation about the pit of the stomach. The same sensation has continued to increase in severity from that time. A few months since it became the incontrovertible opinion of the most skillful physicians, that the increasing difficulty has been the growth of a snake in the stomach. It has grown so large now that it distends the stomach so as to produce a bunch upon the outside as large as a quart bowl. Upon pressing this bunch with the hand, the reptile recoils and produces great distress in the stomach. When fish or meat is being cooked in the room, if the snake is not satisfied with food, it rises up in the throat producing strangulation. When desiring food it manifests it by rising up in the throat. Physicians can see no way in which the snake can be removed without certain death to the woman. Mrs. EVERS is about 35 years of age. She is, of course, feeble in health now, but is around the house.
Chef dies after feeling eel
The Sun, 30th April 2010
A CHEF has died after an EEL was put up his bum.
Shocked doctors in Sichuan, China, found the sea creature in the 59-year-old man's rectum after his death, it has been reported.
The 50cm long Asian swamp eel was allegedly inserted into the unnamed man's bottom, after he passed out drunk, by pals playing a prank on him.
Medics said the eel had devoured his bowels.
New York Times, July 10th 1864
The Lock-port Journal tells the following horrible story: A woman living in Mercer, C.W., the wife of Mr. WM. EVERS, has for four years past been afflicted with a singular difficulty in her stomach. Her complaint has until within a short time past, baffled the skill of physicians. The complaint commenced about four years since, with a tickling and uneasy sensation about the pit of the stomach. The same sensation has continued to increase in severity from that time. A few months since it became the incontrovertible opinion of the most skillful physicians, that the increasing difficulty has been the growth of a snake in the stomach. It has grown so large now that it distends the stomach so as to produce a bunch upon the outside as large as a quart bowl. Upon pressing this bunch with the hand, the reptile recoils and produces great distress in the stomach. When fish or meat is being cooked in the room, if the snake is not satisfied with food, it rises up in the throat producing strangulation. When desiring food it manifests it by rising up in the throat. Physicians can see no way in which the snake can be removed without certain death to the woman. Mrs. EVERS is about 35 years of age. She is, of course, feeble in health now, but is around the house.
From the New York Times online archive
Chef dies after feeling eel
The Sun, 30th April 2010
A CHEF has died after an EEL was put up his bum.
Shocked doctors in Sichuan, China, found the sea creature in the 59-year-old man's rectum after his death, it has been reported.
The 50cm long Asian swamp eel was allegedly inserted into the unnamed man's bottom, after he passed out drunk, by pals playing a prank on him.
Medics said the eel had devoured his bowels.
From the Sun website, 30th April 2010.
There is also a report on the case in Chinese from the China News Agency, 28th April 2010.
Several commentators on the Chinese case have also referred to the short report on "Traumatic rectal perforation by an eel" by Siu Fai Lo et al. of the Department of Surgery at Kwong Wah Hospital (Kowloon, Hong Kong), which appeared in the scholarly journal Surgery in 2004 (135:1, 110-111):
CASE REPORT
A 50-year-old man was seen at the Accident and Emergency Department because of abdominal pain. Physical examination revealed peritonitis. A shadow of an eel was noticed on the abdominal radiograph (Fig 1). On further questioning, the patient admitted an eel was inserted into the rectum in an attempt to relieve constipation. Emergency laparotomy found a 50 cm-long eel biting the splenic flexure of the colon (Fig 2), and a 3-cm perforation was found over the anterior wall of the rectum (Figs 3 and 4). The rectum was divided at the site of perforation, and the proximal end was brought out as colostomy. The postoperative course was uneventful. The patient was discharged home on day 7. [...]
Further evidence that the poetic motif of the internal serpent remains a potent one in popular culture:
There is also a report on the case in Chinese from the China News Agency, 28th April 2010.
Several commentators on the Chinese case have also referred to the short report on "Traumatic rectal perforation by an eel" by Siu Fai Lo et al. of the Department of Surgery at Kwong Wah Hospital (Kowloon, Hong Kong), which appeared in the scholarly journal Surgery in 2004 (135:1, 110-111):
CASE REPORT
A 50-year-old man was seen at the Accident and Emergency Department because of abdominal pain. Physical examination revealed peritonitis. A shadow of an eel was noticed on the abdominal radiograph (Fig 1). On further questioning, the patient admitted an eel was inserted into the rectum in an attempt to relieve constipation. Emergency laparotomy found a 50 cm-long eel biting the splenic flexure of the colon (Fig 2), and a 3-cm perforation was found over the anterior wall of the rectum (Figs 3 and 4). The rectum was divided at the site of perforation, and the proximal end was brought out as colostomy. The postoperative course was uneventful. The patient was discharged home on day 7. [...]
Further evidence that the poetic motif of the internal serpent remains a potent one in popular culture:
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Woman-cat
Beggars condemn woman-cat rumours
RUMOURS circulating in Dar es Salaam about a woman said to have disappeared mysteriously after giving alms to a beggar at Salender Bridge in the city has brought mayhem to some beggars and the disabled, saying it has robbed them of their daily bread.
The beggars condemned the rumours claiming that they are malicious and intended to starve them. Speaking on behalf of her colleagues who had gathered outside the department of information (MAELEZO) today, Neema Robert claimed that the wicked reports spreading in the city like wildfire were designed to chase them from city streets.
“People in Dar es Salaam now look at us as evil people who are not supposed to live among other human beings. They have made life difficult for us because we are being abandoned,” she complained.
“Since the incident occurred, we have been facing so many difficulties, apart from being abandoned, we are not given any support by the society and some of us have been thrown out of the houses we had rented”, lamented Ms Neema Robert.
She further said that they believe that the rumours were purposely set off because there was no evidence which could prove that the incident really happened.
One week ago it was reported that a beggar at Salender Bridge asked for money from a woman who was in a car and after she gave him money her hands grew hairs like a cat and could not drive her car.
It was further alleged that the beggar asked the woman to step out of his car and kiss him so that her hand could return to normal but immediately after the woman fulfilled what she was asked to do, she and the beggar disappeared into thin air.
Ms Neema Robert urged the people not to believe the story and instead they should accept beggars and people with disabilities who ask for alms and treat them just like human beings.
“We are human beings just like anyone else. I believe if such a thing happened to well-to do person, it could not affect them the way it has affected us,” she said.
From the Daily News, Tanzania, 23rd February 2010
See also the comment piece on this news story in The East African, 1st March 2010
See also the comment piece on this news story in The East African, 1st March 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Whittlesea Straw Bear
Straw Bear Festival, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire.
The festival is held every January.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
A glimpse of your own corpse
Carry a candle into every corner of the house, then look into the mirror in the candlelight. You will see what you will look like when you are dead.
Collected from a young Spanish man, recollected from his childhood in Barcelona (2.2.10)
Saturday, 30 January 2010
The Maenads come to school
"Seeing your item regarding warning notices for ceiling fans reminded me of a time some years ago when my children came home from high school saying a teacher had been decapitated by a ceiling fan. As I knew the teacher in question I thought I'd better call and see if his head was still attached. He was still alive, but he'd had to go to hospital for stitches - obviously he didn't read those directions as he stood on a chair to open a window, not noticing the fan. His blood was sprayed and he received a nasty cut, but the way rumours work it became a decapitation. By the next day the story ran that he was still speaking as his head rolled across the classroom floor."
Full story at Column 8, 25th January 2010.
Full story at Column 8, 25th January 2010.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
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