A Good Poop

A Good Poop does a PSA

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Matthews MG. Autoamputation of infant's finger by knitted mitten: a forgotten hazard. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1986 Apr 26;292(6528):1107.

Perhaps everybody but me knows this, but parents, don't leave knitted mittens on your infants when you put them to bed. It may sound bizarre, but it can lead to them losing fingers.

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Friday Fails

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:00:00 -0500

STUNT FAIL

McCoy SH, Johnson KA. Sagittal fracture of the cervical spine. J Trauma. 1976 Apr;16(4):310-12.

SPORTS FAIL

Hsieh CH, Lin GT. Thumb amputation resulting from an attempted basketball slam-dunk. Clin J Sport Med. 2006 May;16(3):274-5.

SEX FAIL

Rose V, Moloney D, Fleming AN. The bra-strap injury: should men have lessons? Br J Plast Surg. 2002 Mar;55(2):179-80.

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Don't they cause enough pain and suffering as it is?

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:00:00 -0500

Wolf J, Curtis N. Brain abscess secondary to dental braces. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2008 Jan;27(1):84-5.

Blum-Hareuveni T, Rehany U, Rumelt S. Devastating endophthalmitis following penetrating ocular injury during night sleep from orthodontic headgear: case report and literature review. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2006 Feb;244(2):253-8.

Fact: Orthodontic devices of all types are the spawn of the devil. Some go straight for your brain, while others prefer to wait until you are fast asleep and then poke your fucking eyes out.

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And you thought the brown acid could mess you up

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:00:00 -0500

Pretty IA, Hall RC. Self-extraction of teeth involving gamma-hydroxybutyric acid. J Forensic Sci. 2004 Sep;49(5):1069-72.

Guy and girl are hanging out. Decide to get smashed on gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), a CNS depressant of historical medical use that is currently used as a recreational drug, as a date rape drug, and by bodybuilders looking to boost their endogenous production of human growth hormone. Bodybuilders are so weird.

At some point during their GHB-fueled escapades, eighteen of the girl's teeth are extracted from her mouth with a pair of pliers. Not one, not two, but eighteen. Molars, incisors, canines, nothing was spared. The paramedics found a friggin' bowl of teeth when they arrived.

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Golf clubs are dangerous weapons

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:30:00 -0500

McIntosh BC, Strugar J, Narayan D. Traumatic frontal bone fracture resulting in intracerebral pneumocephalus. J Craniofac Surg. 2005 May;16(3):461-3.

Some college-aged kid got smacked in the face with a golf club, breaking a bunch of stuff that required a fair bit of surgery to repair. Kid shows up a couple of weeks later leaking spinal cord juice from his nose and complaining of headache. He is diagnosed with intracerebral pneumocephalus (IP), which is doctor-speak for having air inside your brain. Back to the OR he goes, where they somehow get the air out of his brain.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, IP is usually the result of being hit really hard in the head with something. Not only do you have to fracture your skull, you also have to tear the dura mater and arachnoid mater. Apparently one of the possible symptoms of IP is hearing a splashing sound akin to liquid sloshing around in your head whenever you move it.

Oh, and here's a photo of IP:

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Soft drink science

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:00:00 -0500

Belpoggi F, Soffritti M, Tibaldi E, Falcioni L, Bua L, Trabucco F. Results of long-term carcinogenicity bioassays on Coca-Cola administered to Sprague-Dawley rats. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2006 Sep;1076:736-52.

So apparently Coca-Cola causes breast and pancreatic cancers in rats. Better cut back on the Coke, kiddos.

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Chung YW, Han DS, Park YK, Son BK, Paik CH, Jeon YC, Sohn JH. Huge gastric diospyrobezoars successfully treated by oral intake and endoscopic injection of Coca-Cola. Dig Liver Dis. 2006 Jul;38(7):515-7.

Huge gastric diospyrobezoars are huge solidified clumps of nondigestible food material (e.g. vegetable fibres) that can accumulate in your stomach and can potentially block things up real bad. Apparently Coca-Cola is so friggin' corrosive (ever seen what happens to a tarnished penny after you leave it in a cup of Coca-Cola overnight?) that drinking a couple of cans of it every day for a few days can effectively dissolve diospyrobezoars. We're talking about things that stomach acid couldn't deal with!

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Devlin H, Bassiouny MA, Boston D. Hardness of enamel exposed to Coca-Cola and artificial saliva. J Oral Rehabil. 2006 Jan;33(1):26-30.

Now we know why they call it a soft drink. Soft as in your teeth after you drink it. Hey oh!

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Koenigs M, Tranel D. Prefrontal cortex damage abolishes brand-cued changes in cola preference. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2008;3:1-6.

Gee, somebody got paid off by Pepsi.

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Ellertson C. History and efficacy of emergency contraception: beyond Coca-Cola. Fam Plann Perspect. 1996 Mar-Apr;28(2):44-8.

Hong CY, Shieh CC, Wu P, Chiang BN. The spermicidal potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Hum Toxicol. 1987 Sep;6(5):395-6.

Aw yeah. There be fewer things less classy than douching with Coca-Cola after getting boned in an unprotected manner, and that shit won't even do nothing! RU-486 is where it's at.

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DIY surgery: For the hardcore, desperate, or just plain mentally ill

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:00:00 -0500

The closest I've come to performing surgery on my self was the time I popped a really big zit behind my ear. Heck, that sucker might have even been a cyst or something. The cases I've managed to dig out and list below are, shall we say, way more friggin' impressive. Oh, and Wikipedia has a neat little entry on self-surgery that is worth a quick read. Personal self-surgery experiences, as always, are welcome in the comments section!

Harper KA. Double fracture and wedging of a sewing needle interdentally in an attempt at self-treatment: a case report. Dent Update. 2002 Mar;29(2):78-9.

How in the nine circles of hell do you manage to break off two sewing needles while trying to perform dental surgery on yourself? We're talking high carbon steel here!

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Moholkar K, Krishnan J, Sampson B. Self-surgery: removal of ankle surgical implants--A case report. MedGenMed. 2000 Sep 1;2(3):E41.

Do those things itch or something? Perhaps somebody set off one too many airport metal detectors?

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Bordier P, Robert F. Suicide by self-removal of a pacemaker. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 2004 Mar;25(1):78-9.

And we have yet another nominee for world's saddest medical case report! Have a nice day!

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Radhi JM. Lipoma of the colon: self amputation. Am J Gastroenterol. 1993 Nov;88(11):1981-2. No abstract available.

Sadly, I have been unable to access anything more than the title of the article. Thankfully, the title seems to be fairly self-explanatory.

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Beer and Science: Two great things together for one post only

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:00:00 -0500

Cunningham SC, McNear B, Pearlman RS, Kern SE. Beverage-agarose gel electrophoresis: an inquiry-based laboratory exercise with virtual adaptation. CBE Life Sci Educ. 2006 Fall;5(3):281-6.

Aw, universities. Engaging undergraduates by bringing beer into the laboratory. No, not hiding six-packs in the walk-in lab fridge (that's for graduate students), but using Budweiser as a buffer for agarose gel electrophoresis! It works because it contains lots of anions and is subject to at least some quality standards, although there are many drawbacks, such as wasting perfectly good beer on science. And I imagine the apparatus is pretty gross afterwards. Although cleaning up lab stuff is what undergrads are for!

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Guéguen N, Jacob C, Le Guellec H, Morineau T, Lourel M. Sound Level of Environmental Music and Drinking Behavior: A Field Experiment With Beer Drinkers. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2008 Jul 21.

Loud music apparently makes people drink more beer, and drink it faster. Because there's not much else to do when conversation is impossible.

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Geller ES, Russ NW, Altomari MG. Naturalistic observations of beer drinking among college students. J Appl Behav Anal. 1986 Winter;19(4):391-6.

Alternative title: Stuff you already knew about drinking beer, except maybe that bit about guys typically consuming 0.92 ounces of beer per minute at a bar which doesn't sound like a lot. Pussies.

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Toomey TL, Fabian LE, Erickson DJ, Lenk KM. Propensity for obtaining alcohol through shoulder tapping. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2007 Jul;31(7):1218-23. Epub 2007 May 20.

Hey there all of you underage A Good Poop readers! Medical science says that if you want to obtain alcohol, make sure you approach a man who looks like he just turned the legal age, preferably in an urban area.

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The earwax studies

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Yoshiura K, Kinoshita A, Ishida T, Ninokata A, Ishikawa T, Kaname T, Bannai M, Tokunaga K, Sonoda S, Komaki R, Ihara M, Saenko VA, Alipov GK, Sekine I, Komatsu K, Takahashi H, Nakashima M, Sosonkina N, Mapendano CK, Ghadami M, Nomura M, Liang DS, Miwa N, Kim DK, Garidkhuu A, Natsume N, Ohta T, Tomita H, Kaneko A, Kikuchi M, Russomando G, Hirayama K, Ishibashi M, Takahashi A, Saitou N, Murray JC, Saito S, Nakamura Y, Niikawa N. A SNP in the ABCC11 gene is the determinant of human earwax type. Nat Genet. 2006 Mar;38(3):324-30.

Okay, firstly, that's a lot of friggin' authors. What'd they do, give everyone in the department credit? Anyway, there are apparently two types of earwax, wet and dry. East Asians frequently have dry earwax, while pretty much everyone else tends to have the wet variety. Earwax type is determined by a single little G->A SNP in a region of the ABCC11 gene, which encodes a transport protein that presumably determines the water content of earwax.

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Miura K, Yoshiura K, Miura S, Shimada T, Yamasaki K, Yoshida A, Nakayama D, Shibata Y, Niikawa N, Masuzaki H. A strong association between human earwax-type and apocrine colostrum secretion from the mammary gland. Hum Genet. 2007 Jun;121(5):631-3.

There, that's a more reasonable number of authors. If you are a woman, the type of earwax you have may be associated with the quantity of colostrum that you secrete. Colostrum is a particular type of milk produced by mammals in late pregnancy and a couple of days postpartum. It is nutrient-rich, low in fat, and chock full of immunoglobulins and growth factors (thanks, Wikipedia!).

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Now for some real vampires

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:00:00 -0500

Check out this article, which does a nice job of summarizing what clinical vampirism is all about. Honestly, all I cared about were the nasty-ass case reports. Highlights include the dude who liked to jerk off to the sight of his own blood and had managed to figure out how to cut himself so as to cause blood to spurt into his mouth, and the pregnant woman who was hospitalized on multiple occasions for vomiting large quantities of her own blood, which she ingested via cuts she made in the base of her tongue. I've managed to find a couple of other publications of interest.

Hemphill RE, Zabow T. Clinical vampirism. A presentation of 3 cases and a re-evaluation of Haigh, the 'acid-bath murderer'. S Afr Med J. 1983 Feb 19;63(8):278-81.

John Haigh was a fellow from England who in the late 1940s killed at least six people, drank their blood, and then dissolved their bodies in drums of concentrated sulphuric acid. If you give it enough time, it works. You just have to watch out for incriminating things like dentures and steel plates.

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Halevy A, Levi Y, Shnaker A, Orda R. Auto-vampirism--an unusual cause of anaemia.
J R Soc Med. 1989 Oct;82(10):630-1.

Dude just wanted a break from jail, and figured out that making himself sick by ingesting his own blood was a good way to get to the relative luxury of a hospital room. Based on an accidental viewing of Fear Factor, I suppose that drinking a glass of your own blood wouldn't be all that bad. You'd just have to chug it and hopefully have something to chase it with.

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Jensen HM, Poulsen HD. Auto-vampirism in schizophrenia. Nord J Psychiatry. 2002;56(1):47-8.

People may also drink their own blood because Zuul/Big Bird/Jesus/the CIA commands them to.

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In which a bunch of scientists over-analyze Bram Stoker's Dracula

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:32:20 -0500

Okay, let's try again.

Almond BR. Monstrous infants and vampyric mothers in Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Int J Psychoanal. 2007 Feb;88(Pt 1):219-35.

"Vampires and the state of being "undead" are representations of intense oral needs, experienced in a context of passivity and helplessness."

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Stiles A. Cerebral automatism, the brain, and the soul in Bram Stoker's Dracula. J Hist Neurosci. 2006 Jun;15(2):131-52.

"I suggest that Stoker's vampire protagonist dramatizes the pervasive late-nineteenth-century fear that human beings are soulless machines motivated solely by physiological factors."

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Raines JM, Raines LC, Singer M. Dracula - Disorders of the self and borderline personality organization. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 1994 Dec;17(4):811-26. Review.

"...Bram Stoker's novel Dracula can best be understood as a dramatic, hyperbolic, and fantastic expression of themes consistent with contemporary psychoanalytic conceptions of borderline personality disorder organization."

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Successful suicide edition

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0500

Oh look, a blog that hasn't been updated in almost a month. Heh.

When it comes to suicide, you've got a fairly standard list of methods to work with: firing a bullet into your head, consuming copious amounts of highly toxic drugs/chemicals, jumping in front or off of something, hanging your neck from something, slicing your wrist (vertically, of course), and drowning. Then you have the weird approaches to offing yourself, which is where I come in.

Sauvageau A, Yesovitch R. Choking on toilet paper: an unusual case of suicide and a review of the literature on suicide by smothering, strangulation, and choking. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 2006 Jun;27(2):173-4.

Y'know when you get a bit of kleenex in your mouth and it dries out your cheek/tongue/gums and then gets stuck and feels really gross? Imagine that times a thousand while choking to death. Fun times.

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Lunetta P, Ohberg A, Sajantila A. Suicide by intracerebellar ballpoint pen. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 2002 Dec;23(4):334-7.

I like how they didn't figure out the dude had a friggin' Bic stuck in his head until they cut him open at the autopsy.

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Ellis PS. Fatal gunshot injury caused by an unusual projectile--a barrel-cleaning brush as a tandem bullet. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1997 Jun;18(2):168-71.

Somebody was sure in a rush / To kill themselves with a brush

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Blanco Pampin JM, Lopez-Abajo Rodriguez BA. Suicidal hanging within an automobile. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 2001 Dec;22(4):367-9.

So much for seat belts saving lives.

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Murty OP. Unusual self-electrocution simulating judicial electrocution by an adolescent. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 2008 Jun;29(2):167-9.

Not just electrocution, but judicial electrocution. Might as well do it up right before you go out, just sticking a wire in a socket is kind of lame.

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Lin Z, Kondo T, Sato Y, Ohtsuji M, Takayasu T, Ohshima T. An autopsy case of suicidal strangulation with four looped rubber bands. Nihon Hoigaku Zasshi. 1997 Jun;51(3):231-4.

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Prahlow JA, Doyle BW. A suicide using a homemade carbon monoxide "death machine". Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 2005 Jun;26(2):177-80.

Chemistry for the suicidal: formic acid + sulfuric acid -(closed room)-> drifting slowly off to an unending sleep

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Unsuccessful suicide edition

Fri, 30 May 2008 07:00:00 -0500

Let's be morbid, shall we?

Van de Putte D, Ceelen W, Gillardin JM, Pattyn P, de Hemptinne B. Attempted Suicide by Auto-Injection of Polyurethane (PU) Foam: Report of a Case. J Trauma. 2007 Jun 1; [Epub ahead of print] No abstract available.

I'm not sure how this would work. Where exactly did it get injected? Ear? Mouth? Belly button?

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Panourias IG, Slatinopoulos VK, Arvanitis DL. Penetrating craniocerebral injury caused by a pneumatic nail gun: an unsuccessful attempt of suicide. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2006 Jul;108(5):490-2.

Man, I really want to play Quake for some reason.

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Burd A, Ahmed K, Noronha FV, Chan JY, Pang PC. Surgical reconstruction of attempted suicide charcoal burns. J Burn Care Res. 2006 May-Jun;27(3):330-2.

Apparently the popular way to snuff yourself out these days in Hong Kong is by burning charcoal in an enclosed space, leading to carbon monoxide poisoning.

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Vayvada H, Menderes A, Yilmaz M, Mola F, Kzlkaya A, Atabey A. Management of close-range, high-energy shotgun and rifle wounds to the face. J Craniofac Surg. 2005 Sep;16(5):794-804.

Arsefaces!

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Spiers AS. Attempted suicide or hitting the nail on the head. Case report. J Fla Med Assoc. 1994 Dec;81(12):822-3.

Another nail one, but this one is way more hardcore, since the personal involved actually hammered a couple of nails into their head with a hammer!

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This is why they post all of those warnings on roller coaster line entrance signs

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:00:00 -0500

Thakur D, Pocha M. Pneumothorax after a roller coaster ride. Arch Dis Child. 2006 May;91(5):421. No abstract available.

So riding a roller coaster can potentially cause your lung to deflate like a balloon. Now that's a ride!

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Roldan-Valadez E, Facha MT, Martinez-Lopez M, Herrera-Mora P. Subdural hematoma in a teenager related to roller-coaster ride. Eur J Paediatr Neurol. 2006 Jul;10(4):194-6. Epub 2006 Sep 1.

A subdural hematoma occurs when veins in your brain rupture for some reason (usually a head injury), resulting in blood pooling underneath your skull. The pressure created by the pooling blood can deform your brain.

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Schievink WI, Ebersold MJ, Atkinson JL. Roller-coaster headache due to spinal cerebrospinal fluid leak. Lancet. 1996 May 18;347(9012):1409. No abstract available.

A fluid leak sounds like a car problem and not a person problem. Ick.

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Pelletier AR, Gilchrist J. Roller coaster related fatalities, United States, 1994--2004. Inj Prev. 2005 Oct;11(5):309-12.

Approximately four people die every year in the United States due to a roller coaster-related injury. Given the abject stupidity of a good portion of humanity, I honestly figured it would be worse than that.

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Another medical condition that I am exceptionally happy not to have

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:33:33 -0500

Marin R, Francis JM. A case of idiopathic fecal incontinence. Evaluation and management. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 1997 Jul-Aug;76(4):333-7.

I mean, it's one thing to piss yourself, but it's another thing entirely to poop yourself. For no apparent reason. While being examined for back pain.

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