exhilarating gas

In the mid 19th century a fad arose for the use of nitrous oxide as a salon amusement. Inhaling gases was so much in vogue even carbon monoxide was popular for a while, the pink rosy cheeks it caused were believed to be beneficial to one’s health.

 

A dentist named Horace Wells was one of the first to notice that nitrous oxide provided pain relief. Unfortuntely he committed suicide after a demonstration in front of his peers was less successful than anticipated.

At the height of its popularity a Grand Exhibition of Laughing Gas was held where “probably no one will attempt to fight”

Nitrous oxide is rumoured to be mixed with viagra to enhance athletic ability, not in the bedroom but in the sporting arena. Enterprising Israeli engineers are experimenting by adding it to Czech beer and Russian vodka, apparently to make drinkers laugh. Their own alcoholic drinks must already be funny enough not to need further doctoring……..

gee whizz

we love unusual words at the gimcrack. gossypiboma is the word used to describe a surgical sponge accidently left behind in a patient’s body. yes, it happens so frequently there is a name for it. if you’re overweight your chances of ending up with a gossypiboma after an operation are significantly higher. talk about adding insult to injury.

another favourite word beginning with “g” is gomphiasis which is the technical term for having loose teeth.

nursemyra likes made up words too. like ‘grogambulate‘. this means to walk with special attention paid to your posture and carriage whilst very very drunk.

I think it’s time for another gimcrack competition. First prize is an Australia-shaped stress ball (except it’s not a ball obviously) and a copy of “Sex in the Future” by my favourite science writer Robin Baker. Runners up will probably get cds again and maybe australia-shaped postit notes. the task this month is to submit an interesting word beginning with the letter “G”. It can be real or made up – just so long as it qualifies as a grandiloquism.

bring me my stud finder

an extraordinarily large number of people, mostly US citizens, claim to have been abducted by aliens. nursemyra is a skeptic and requires proof before she believes almost anything. Dr Roger Lier thinks he may have recovered alien implants from two people he performed surgery on in 1995

Dr. Roger Leir is a California surgeon who has removed what may be alien implants from two people brought to him by hypno-anesthesia therapist and abduction researcher Derrel Sims of Houston, Texas. 

On August 19, 1995, several alleged “implants” were surgically removed from two abductees who have been working with Sims. If preliminary findings are confirmed by further laboratory testing, these implants might provide hard evidence that the abduction phenomenon is a reality.

Dr. Leir removed a total of three objects, two from one patient and one from a second patient. Both specimens in the first patient, a woman, were located in her large toe, one on each side of the toe. The third object was removed from the back of the left hand of the second patient, a man, slightly above the web area between the thumb and the index finger.

According to Sims, these people were originally unaware that they had the implants. The objects were accidently discovered on x-rays taken for unrelated reasons. There was no pain associated, and neither patient had any prior sensation of foreign objects in the body. Another peculiar fact is that these implants also left no sign of entry into the body; if there was an initial incision, it healed so perfectly that there was no scar.

To help locate the implants more specifically prior to surgery, Dr. Leir used a stud finder and a gauss meter.When the gauss meter was put near the object in the man’s hand, the meter “went crazy.”  The objects removed were flat and approximately triangular in shape, about half a centimeter on each side. Though metallic inside, they were covered with a thick, dense gray membrane. Dr. Leir tried to cut into the membrane with a scalpel, but couldn’t.

When Derrel Sims got the objects back to Houston, his first test was to expose them to ultraviolet light. He found that they all glowed brilliant fluorescent green. Derrel has found in his research that patches of some substance, invisible to the naked eye but fluorescent under black light, sometimes show up on an abductee’s body following an abduction. He suspects that whatever this substance is, it could result from direct physical contact with the body of the abductor.

mysterious testicles

this is not exactly gimcrack related but it is about testicles and you know we love to report on those body parts and what they get up to. if Aubrey Broughill, alias “Grandpa Harry” had been one of our inmates patients he may not have found himself being arrested for robbery on his 73rd birthday. A few weeks after his release on bail his body was found in a flooded quarry

“In a report lodged at Broughill’s inquest, senior pathologist Michael Burke explained the bizarre wound to the groin. “The testes are not present . . . Examination of the edges of the injury showed no hesitation marks and no serrations or other defects.” In lay terms, he had been castrated. But by whom, or what?

Burke said: “It is my understanding that turtles were associated with the deceased’s body when the remains were recovered by police. I have had a discussion with veterinary experts regarding the structure of freshwater turtle mouth parts. I have been informed that the mouth parts have a scissors-like action. The incised-like injury to the scrotum could be explained by post mortem activity by turtles.” He added a rider: “It is unusual that no other such injuries were seen on any other part of the deceased’s body.”

since we’re all about the testicles today, here’s another australian story.

Even more bizarre were owners who asked for testicular implants for their pooches, most often so they could compete in dog shows, be exported for sale overseas, or to negate a prostate problem.

Occasionally people requested the $400 procedure (excluding the cost of the actual implants in small, medium and large sizes that must be ordered from Japan) for appearance’s sake.

“They might want to enhance the look of the dog’s testicles, have large ones on a chihuahua,” Randwick Veterinary Hospital’s Dr Andrew Herron said.

“If it was to show off down the park, I’d probably suggest I take them from him [the owner] and put his in the dog.”

nursemyra has blogged before about xenotransplantation, but for those of you who are interested in yet more testicle stories……

The granddaddy of testicle transplants, the man who truly deserves primacy in this questionable field, was a Chicago urologist by the name of Victor Lespinasse. Lespinasse’s operations and their reported success ignited a flurry of testicle transplants in the early 1920s in what has to be one of the weirdest episodes in medical history.

Lespinasse’s first transplant patient was a 33 year old man who had the misfortune of losing both testicles independently. The first was lost in a botched hernia operation, the second after an accident. After the loss of the second testicle, the man found he was unable to perform sexually and sought Lespinasse’s help in January of 1911. Operating under the assumption that the testicles were the source of masculine vigor, Lespinasse performed the first ever testicle transplant in 1911.

According to Lespinasse’s reports, four days after the operation the recipient reported a strong erection and checked out of the hospital to put it to good use. After a follow-up two years later, Lespinasse reported that the man’s virility remained intact.

image of work by van lieshout

In 1922, Lepinasse performed the surgery on Harry F. McCormick, one of the richest men in the world at the time and the subject of much tabloid gossip. Such was his fame that the procedure made the front page of the New York Times. The donor was reputed to be that exemplar of maleness, a blacksmith, inspiring the ditty:

Under the spreading chestnut tree,
The village smithy stands,
The smith a gloomy man is he,
McCormick has his glands

you don’t know the half of it dearie

regular readers know we have a transgendered patient with some unfortunate physical shortcomings. it has been a long standing ambition of nursemyra to do a makeover on Duc and I’ve been reading up on Ray Bourbon to see if he had any tips.

Ray was a very interesting character and I urge you to read coolcatdaddy’s excellent site about his life which is where I found this extract from Ray’s unpublished memoirs

One mid-afternoon came the big love scene between Swanson and Valentino, on the deck, both leaning against the rail. They moved in for the kiss. Swanson broke away screaming and swearing about Valentino eating so much garlic that she couldnít get her breath. Bill Boyd and myself walked away quickly — we didn’t dare let them see us laughing.

Shortly, everything quieted down. Swanson and Valentino went to their respective rooms and the makeup men made the repairs. However, Valentino took some limburger cheese and rubbed it all around his mouth. Then, he wiped off just enough so that the stink would stay. He was powdered down and he and Swanson were ready to try the scene again.

The director had them move into position and started the scene. They moved slowly to each other — then, the kiss.

Swanson started trying to break away from Valentino. The harder she fought the more tightly he held her. she finally broke away and heaved all over Valentino and herself. He let go of her. I thought for a moment she was going all the way over the rail. I’ve never seen anyone that sick, Valentino was covered in vomit from his collar right on down to the deck. But he didn’t lose his reserve, he just turned away and went to his room.

Swanson slowly raised up, turned around and got her breath. She was screaming with rage “It’s not bad enough with the garlic, now he’s been eating SHIT!” she screamed as she went back over the rail.

there’s an even funnier story about a massive pile of real shit (you know we love shit stories here at the gimcrack) if you click on the link above and scroll down to Jean Barries and the elephant.

Ray’s life ended sadly as did Gene Malin’s who was another member of the Pansy Craze team and you can read about them and others on wikipedia. but the strangest pansy death of all was Bert Savoy’s

The story of Bert Savoy’s death is legendary and by all accounts true. On 26 june 1923 Savoy and two friends were walking along the shore at Long Beach watching an upcoming storm when a thunderclap prompted Savoy to squeal “Ain’t Miss God cuttin’ up somethin’ awful?”

He was immediately struck dead by a bolt of lightning…..

image taken by Dominic Gili at Sydney’s 2007 Mardi Gras

meet Dr. Felix, Phil Spector’s long lost cousin

we have a patient at the Gimcrack who has only one testicle. quite possibly he has a second one hiding somewhere but he’s remarkably sanguine about his singledom and often mentions it in passing as in “hello, my name is Rolf*, I only have one testicle”.

most people wouldn’t take this any further but nursemyra was a little bored today and thought she’d press Rolf for details. surprisingly there were none. he didn’t know why and he didn’t particularly care, he just liked to watch the reaction when he made his disclosure.

researching male anatomy is nursemyra’s passion so I’ve googled a few appropriate words and discovered…… the voluntary eunuch. It’s quite a long article and you may not have the stomach nor the time to read it all so here’s an excerpt that tells you all you need to know.

Tom paid $10,000 to have his testicles removed  because: “They spoiled the line of his swimsuit.”

Dr. Spector charges $1,600 for a two-hour testicle-removal surgery. For an additional $1,200, Spector will slice away the eunuch’s scrotum.Dr. Spector is willing to perform controversial elective surgeries, but there are some lines even he isn’t willing to cross—namely, penectomies (removal of the penis). “I’m a little conservative in my attitude,” Spector admits.

well, we’re a little conservative here at the gimcrack too Phil Felix. we’re not going to mess with Rolf’s half empty scrotum, even if it does spoil the line of his swimsuit a little.

we could always pad it out with one of our inflatables….

* name changed on a whim only

diving for pearls

you don’t really need to know how nursemyra’s mind works but in my own defence I came upon this site while trying to remember the lyrics to an old elvis costello song.

It is important to note that not all sexual partners enjoy the feeling of genital beads.

maybe they might like to add that not all sexual partners enjoy the associated look either. but I felt a strange attraction to the single star studded variety further down the page. sometimes less is more. I’ve memorised the procedure from the helpful photographs so any boys out there who want to freshen up their look are welcome to drop by the Gimcrack tomorrow. nursemyra will be on duty from 9:00 am.