In 1849, a younger man obtained his penis caught in a bottle after utilizing it to urinate into. The bottle contained potassium and naphtha. The potassium’s response triggered a vacuum, trapping his penis and inflicting it to swell. A surgeon finally freed the penis by breaking the bottle, relieving the ache and ending the weird predicament.
A number of months in the past I used to be known as in nice haste to a younger gentleman, who was in a most ludicrous but painful situation. I discovered, on examination, a bottle, holding a few pint, with a brief neck and small mouth, firmly connected to his physique by the penis, which was drawn by way of the neck and projected into the bottle, being swollen and purple. The bottle, which was a white one, with a ground-glass stopper and completely clear, had a gap of three fourths of an inch in diameter solely: and the penis being a lot swollen rendered its extraction completely unimaginable. The affected person was tremendously frightened, and so pressing for its elimination that he would give me no account of its stepping into its current novel state of affairs, however implored me to liberate it immediately, because the ache was intense and the psychological anguish and fright insupportable.
Seeing no hopes of getting a proof in his current predicament, and after endeavoring to drag the penis out with my fingers, with out success, I seized a big knife mendacity on the desk, and with the again of it I struck a blow on the neck of the bottle, shivering it to atoms and liberating the penis straight away, a lot to the delight of the terrified youth. The glans penis was enormously swollen and black, as was the prepuce; each have been vesicated, as if scalding water or hearth had been utilized to them. He complained of smarting and ache within the penis, after the bottle was eliminated; and irritation, swelling and discoloration continued for various days, however by scarification and chilly functions, subsided; but not with out nice apprehensions on the a part of the affected person, and a very good diploma of actual ache within the penis.
I used to be extraordinarily curious myself; however the fright and perturbation of the affected person’s thoughts, and his apprehensions of shedding his penis totally, both by the burn, swelling, irritation, or by my slicing it off to get it out of the bottle, all stumbled on him without delay and overwhelmed him with concern.
Now for the reason. A bottle wherein some potassium had been saved in naphtha, and which had been used up in experiments, was standing in his room; and wishing to urinate with out leaving his room, he pulled out the glass stopper and utilized his penis to its mouth. The primary jet of urine was adopted by an explosive sound and flash of fireside, and fast as thought the penis was drawn into the bottle with a drive and tenacity which held it as firmly as if in a vice. The burning of the potassium created a vacuum instantaneously, and the smooth yielding tissue of the penis effectually excluding the air, the bottle acted like an enormous cupping glass to this novel portion of the system. The small measurement of the mouth of the bottle compressed the veins, whereas the arteries continued to pour their blood into the glans, prepuce, and so on. From this trigger, and the rarefied air within the bottle, the components swelled and puffed as much as an infinite measurement.
How a lot potassium was within the bottle on the time shouldn’t be identified, however it’s possible that however just a few grains have been left, and people damaged off from a few of the bigger globules, and so small as to have escaped the person’s remark. I used to be anxious to check the matter (although not with the identical devices which the affected person had executed) and for that objective took just a few small particles of potassium, blended with about, a tea-spoonful of naphtha, and positioned them in a pint bottle. Then I launched some urine with a touch, whereas the top of certainly one of my fingers was inserted into the mouth of the bottle, however not so tightly as to fully shut it, and the consequence was a loud explosion like a percussion cap, and the finger was drawn forcibly into the bottle and held there strongly — thus verifying, in some extent, this extremely attention-grabbing philosophical experiment, which so frightened my good friend and affected person.
The novelty of this accident is my apology for spending so many phrases in reporting it, whereas its ludicrous character will, maybe, excite a smile; nevertheless it was something however a joke on the time to the poor sufferer, who imagined in his fright that if his penis was not already ruined, breaking the bottle to liberate it might endanger its integrity by the damaged spicules slicing or lacerating the components.