
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
