Why Do Men Have Nipples? (16 page)

To give an example of how much drinking this means, a hundred-pound person would need to drink about ten drinks in an hour to threaten his or her life. Our bodies tend to protect us from alcohol-related death by vomiting or passing out. The danger occurs when you puke and faint at the same time. If you are brought to the hospital, we will protect your breathing and wait for the alcohol to move out of your system. Stomach pumping for alcohol abuse is a myth since you do that yourself when you puke. Oh, and occasionally when it is a slow night in the ER, the staff will bet on who can guess your blood-alcohol level, just to pass the time. . . .

DOES HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS REALLY
EXIST?

On an episode of
King of the Hill,
Hank accidentally sees his mother in bed with her new boyfriend and suddenly loses his vision. In the movie
Hollywood Ending,
Woody Allen’s character has the same problem because he is so nervous about the film he has to direct. So, does this sudden blindness really happen outside of the movies and TV?

The answer is definitely yes. And it is not unusual to see these patients in the ER. Hysterical blindness can occur as a result of a psychological stress (a conversion disorder) or someone can intentionally fake blindness for some secondary gain (malingering)—a prisoner who says he can’t see in order to try to avoid going directly to jail. It is not difficult to figure out when patients say they are blind but can actually see. We have a simple test that lets us determine whether the eyes are functioning. Using a rotating striped drum, we test for something called optokinetic nystagmus. As the drum spins, normal eyes will be seen moving back and forth.

If a striped rotating drum is not available, you can always use a picture of J. Lo’s rear. Move it back and forth, and any normal eyes will follow.

Leyner:
So . . .

Gberg:
Just sent you the blindness question.

Leyner:
Okay . . . just got the e-mail . . . I’m reading it now . . . hold on (to something of your own choosing).

Gberg:
Just hold on to what you’ve got. You’ve got a lot girl, you’ve got a lot. Got a lo-ovely feelin’. Hang on, hang on to what you’ve got. I may have left out a “hang on” in that musical interlude. Singing doesn’t really work on IM.

Leyner:
I think we need to explain just what that test is, then maybe make some joke about something visual that would be almost impossible not to react to, like some starlet’s muff for instance, then . . . maybe a joke about what might cause hysterical deafness.

Gberg:
Very good. Will do. Let’s focus on the intros.

Leyner:
Okay . . . let me read through the intro again. . . .

WHAT WOULD REALLY HAPPEN IF A JUNIOR
MINT FELL INSIDE SOMEONE DURING
SURGERY, AS IN THE INFAMOUS
SEINFELD
EPISODE?

We’re not sure that we can answer this one with any scientific references, and there probably isn’t a hospital that would allow you to study the consequences of leaving movie candy inside a patient during surgery. This is not to say that surgeons don’t occasionally leave things behind. Surgical sponges and instruments are the most common items left behind, and believe us, it has happened.

In the
Seinfeld
episode, the patient makes a miraculous recovery and it is implied that the mint may have prevented infection. Although there are some reports about using granulated sugar and honey on wounds, having a Junior Mint inside your body is more likely to cause an infection. So, remember to always ask your surgeon to step out of the operating room if he or she needs a snack.

IS IT DANGEROUS TO EAT ANOTHER
HUMAN BEING?

One of Mark Leyner’s favorite recent news stories is that of Armin Meiwes, a German computer technician who was convicted of murdering someone for sexual pleasure and then eating him over the next several months. Mr. Meiwes had advertised on the Internet for “well-built young men aged eighteen to thirty to slaughter.”

Mr. Meiwes in interviews with court psychiatrists said that his fantasies of cannabilism began as a child from watching horror films. For those film buffs who are looking for a viewing list, these movies all involve cannibalism:
Alive; Eating Raoul; The Silence of the Lambs; Hannibal; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover;
and
Night of the Living Dead
.

So, is it dangerous to eat another human being? I am sad to report that it really isn’t that dangerous. Human flesh holds much nutritional value and will keep you alive if your plane goes down and all you have are your fellow, more unfortunate, passengers. Unless you are eating the brain.

A rare disease called Kuru can occur from eating human brains, which killed about 10 percent of the Fore, a New Guinea tribe of cannibals. The Fore would honor their dead by eating them. The brain was reserved for the female relatives and children. Whole villages were wiped out by this rare neurodegenerative disease.

Kuru manifests with muscle weakness and trouble walking. The Fore would then have trouble talking and could no longer stand, sit, or even hold their heads up. Death ultimately resulted from starvation or an infection that developed when they became so sick. Researchers were very interested in this disease because it is very similar to mad cow disease.

12:40
P.M.

Gberg:
Time really flies when you are typing away at this IM thing.

Leyner:
Are you being sarcastic?

Gberg:
No.

Gberg:
How was the lamb your mother-in-law made last night?

Leyner:
The goat you mean.

Leyner:
It was great.

Leyner:
I love goat and all things goat.

Gberg:
I made a mean beef tenderloin last night.

Leyner:
Meat, cheese, milk, etc.

Leyner:
How’d you make it?

Gberg:
In a red wine sauce, tender and delicious.

Gberg:
Did I tell you that I added in your favorite story of that German cannibal?

Leyner:
That sounds great.

12:45
P.M.

Leyner:
I saw that . . . that’s essential and indispensable for this book.

Gberg:
What an insane story.

Leyner:
It’s a lot more common than you think. Families tend to keep cannibalism hushed up . . . I had an uncle . . .

Gberg:
I will never come to your family’s for Thanksgiving.

Leyner:
Never mind.

Leyner:
I was looking up satyriasis.

Leyner:
Speaking of goats.

Gberg:
What is satyriasis?

Leyner:
It comes from the word “satyr,” meaning part man, part goat (fond of Dionysian revelry).

Leyner:
Satyriasis: abnormal sexual craving in the male.

12:50
P.M.

Gberg:
Says on the Internet that it is caused by extreme narcissism.

Leyner:
Really . . . I’m in the high-risk category then.

Leyner:
I can spend all day just staring at a single vein on my left bicep.

Gberg:
There are treatment options available, medication or . . . I assume that castration is not an option.

Leyner:
I’m not taking some horse suppository, son.

Gberg:
Maybe some very tight underwear?

HOW MANY TIMES CAN YOU BE SHOT AND
STILL SURVIVE?

At the end of
Scarface,
Tony Montana gets shot many times but doesn’t lose his ability to spew obscenities. In the hospital we believe that an innocent person will get killed by a single gunshot but the meanest, guiltiest thug can survive multiple gunshots and simply get up, curse at the doctors, and walk out.

The truth is that it really depends on where the bullet hits you.

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A WEREWOLF?

It happened in
An American Werewolf in London,
and who can forget Michael J. Fox as
Teen Wolf
? Lyncanthropy refers to the delusion that one is a wolf. This can definitely be seen in psychiatric illness, but it may be that in some cases this is not a delusion at all. The werewolf legend may have originated out of two medical conditions.

Porphyria is a rare hereditary blood disease. There are two types of porphyria. In one type, cutaneous porphyria, the symptoms can resemble the characteristics of a werewolf. These patients become extremely sensitive to sunlight, grow excessive amounts of hair, and develop sores, scars, and discolored skin. Porphyria also leads to tightening of the skin around the lips and gums, and can make the incisors stand out (think fangs).

Another disease that may have contributed to the werewolf myth is congenital hypertrichosis universalis, sometimes known as human werewolf syndrome. This is another rare genetic disorder that is characterized by excessive hair growth over the whole body, including the face. If you travel to Austria, you can see portraits of the first family discovered with this condition in Ambras Castle near Innsbruck.

So, there isn’t really such a thing as a werewolf, but there is a possible medical explanation of how the stories began. Sorry, we don’t have a medical explanation for Dracula, Frankenstein, or the Abominable Snowman, but we’ll do some research and include it in our next book,
Why Are Women Smarter?

CAN YOU REALLY EXPLODE FROM EATING
TOO MUCH?

In
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,
a man eats a massive feast, but one wafer-thin dinner mint puts him over the edge. He explodes all over the restaurant. With the obesity epidemic in our country, we have a great deal to worry about, but don’t expect to see people exploding at McDonald’s. People won’t explode from overeating, but if you eat too many Big Macs, you can rupture your stomach.

Stomach rupture, or gastrorrhexis, is a rare condition, although it has been reported to occur from eating too much. In a 2003 issue of
Legal Medicine,
Japanese scientists Ishikawa et alia, reported the case of a forty-nine-year-old man who was found dead in a public restroom after his stomach exploded from eating too much. There is no mention of what his last supper was, and therefore no reason to suspect Pop Rocks and Coke (see chapter 8, page 192).

DO PEOPLE EVER HAVE WEBBED HANDS
AND FEET LIKE THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS?

Does anyone else remember the Man from Atlantis? Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing from
Dallas
) played the last man from the legendary underwater city of Atlantis. He had webbed feet and hands and gills instead of lungs. This fantastic show only lasted for one season, but it inspired a TV junkie to ask if people could really have webbed hands and feet.

The answer is yes! People can have webbed hands and feet. Actually, it is more common than you may think, occurring anywhere from one in one thousand to one in two thousand births. There are two types of webbing: syndactyly is when two fingers or toes are fused or webbed; polydactyly involves the webbing of more than two fingers or toes. We all start life with hands and feet that resemble a duck, and between the sixth and eighth week of development, our fingers and toes separate. The failure of this separation is what leaves you looking like the Man from Atlantis.

WHY DO YOU SEE STARS WHEN YOU ARE
HIT IN THE HEAD?

It always happened to Wile E. Coyote. The Road Runner drops an anvil on his head and then the poor coyote sees stars circling his head. Not only does this happen in cartoons but it is actually a sign of a concussion. A concussion is simply when an injury to the head causes your brain to move around inside your skull.

As for the stars, what probably happens is that the portion of your brain that is responsible for visual information, the occipital lobe, bangs up against the side of the skull.

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE BOY IN
THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE
?

In 1976, one year before John Travolta was dancing his way through
Saturday Night Fever,
he was in
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.
The film was based on a true story of a boy suffering from a rare inherited disease called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID). SCID is now often referred to as “bubble boy” disease, thanks to this cinematic tour de force.

Severe Combined Immunodeficiency is a life-threatening syndrome in which there is a defect in the white blood cells that protect us from infection. This lack of a functioning immune system leads to frequent severe infections. Patients are usually diagnosed before they are three months old and if untreated the syndrome can be fatal. New treatments such as stem cell or bone marrow transplantation can save many patients. Gene therapy now also shows promise as a treatment for one type of this syndrome.

After some of his more recent movies, John Travolta has been rumored to be photographed by paparazzi attempting to re-enter the bubble. Good idea.

CHAPTER 8

OLD WIVES’ TALES

It’s
now 4A.M. and people are drunk, bloated, and exhausted. Leyner is recovering from his Academy Award performance and has his tongue inside the tequila bottle, trying to extract every last drop. He removes his mouth from the bottle and says, “The tongue is God’s gift to the human race . . . the ultimate organ of poetry and pleasuring.”