The Null Device

The Psychology of Animals Swallowed Alive

Found in digitised archives of the British Medical Journal, the transcript of a 1925 lecture by one Sir John Bland-Sutton, titled simply The Psychology of Animals Swallowed Alive, which one imagines was given for the entertainment of the fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons:

A thin and foolish woman believed she had accidentally swallowed a frog and that her thinness was due to the frog eating the food in her stomach. In order to dispel the illusion the doctor gave her an emetic an during the vomiting, he slipped a small frog into the basin. When the patient saw the frog her joy was great, but in a few minutes her depression returned: "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I am sure this frog has left some young ones in my stomach." The doctor looked wise, pulled out his magnifying glass, and after critically examining the fron said unto the patient, "Fear not: this frog has not left any froglets inside you. Behold, it is a male!" The patient was quite satisfied, became happy, and in a few months was plump again. She was not a naturalist, and therefore ignorant of the fact that it is due to tell the sex of frogs by mere inspection except at the breeding season.

There are 1 comments on "The Psychology of Animals Swallowed Alive":

Want to say something? Do so here.

Post pseudonymously

Display name:
URL:(optional)

Post using your Facebook ID

To prove that you are not a bot, please enter the text in the image on the right in the field below it.

Your Comment:

Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.

Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.