The wiki-article on Dillinger says
What kind of treatment are we talking about here?
Poddinly injections of either mercury or colloidal silver into the urethra. Cite.
That would sting a bit.
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, I once saw a sex hygiene film for military men, done in the 30’s maybe, and after any unprotected sex the men were supposed to report immediately to the sex hygiene office where their genitals were washed inside out with a solution of mercury.
I couldn’t finish watching it, it looked too uncomfortable, although the voiceover announcer and the actors did not make it seem so.
Anyway, was this a case of the cure being worse than the disease? With what we know now about mercury poisoning, how dangerous was this?
Roddy
I don’t know about Dillinger, but I do know from my short career as a healthcare provider that one of the effects of gonorrhea is a build up of scar tissue in the urethra that eventually can shut off urination. That by itself is pretty damn painful, and the old-school treatment was to run a catheter up the urethra. As the urethra was blocked, this required more than normal effort. The one patient I treated this way found it extrmely painful, indeed.
And that was without mercury or colloidal silver.
It’s so painful the surgical rods used to allow urination blocked by VD caused by urethral scarring are actually used by S&M pain fetishists.
Warning - cringe inducing description
Ouch. I almost wished I didn’t ask.
Topical treatment with mercury-containing compounds (though no longer used to my knowledge for anti-microbial/antiseptic purposes) does not pose the same risk as long-term exposure through (for example) ingestion of excessive quantities of fish containing mercury.
Ah, for the good old days when mercury and arsenic (for syphilis) were mainstays of VD treatment.
AFAIK, most people who use urethral sounds like this onefor sexual gratification find the sensation “interesting” but not painful. If the urethra is normal (no scars or strictures) and the sound is of an appropriate size, the procedure is not painful.
I’ve used sounds to dilate a urethral stricture (*not *caused by VD, I hasten to add) and I can assure you that the sensation, while not exactly enjoyable, is not particularly painful.
Did these treatments actually work?
Bullshit. I had it done repeatedly when I was 4-5 years old, which did not solve the problem and I ended up having surgery to deal with it.
Not only was it agonizing in the office, the pain of urination was intense enough that I would try to not pee until my poor little bladder gave up and I peed all over wherever I was at the time.
Fuck anybody sideways with a chainsaw who has never had a procedure done to them and blithly claims it isn’t that painful.
Agreed. Stuff being inserted into the urethra is excruciating (and, AFAIK, my urethra is normal – I’ve never had an STD or even a UTI). I’ve had flexible catheters inserted three times, twice to allow urination during surgery and once to get a camera into my bladder to check for a stone. With the urinary catheters, the sensation was so painful that it woke me up from my pre-op anesthesia and had me screaming and struggling against the doctors and nurses, and having it taken out during recovery was also bad.
On the other hand, when the urologist checked with the camera, he pushed a solution of lidocaine jelly up the entire length of the urethra first, and while that wasn’t fun, it wasn’t really painful, and the camera catheter went up without a twinge from my urethral nerves. Hooray for local anesthetics!
I was admitted to the emergency room with extreme cramping in my solar plexus region (turned out to be gall stones). I was unable to give a urine sample because I didn’t have to go, so an individual catheterized me. (When I saw the doctor later, she expressed surprise that I had been cathed, saying that she didn’t order it. I have since wondered if the individual in question wasn’t some sicko who slipped in the ER with a fake badge.)
I now consider any future attempt to cath me to be deadly force and I WILL respond in kind.
BTW, did anyone see the episode(s) of Deadwood where Al Swearingen was undergoing treatment for kidney stones? Talk about not wishing something on your worst enemy.
Rob
Not tomention the occasional case of smurfdick
Hell, when I was a tot topical mercury (in the form of Mercurochrome) was a mainstay for treatment of chiggar bites.
Nooooooooooooo freakin’ kidding. I am so glad I’m alive today when we at least have methods of knocking people out or knocking their nerves out.
Sounds to me like **cwthree ***DID *have the procedure done and *DID NOT *find it painful. I think the point wasn’t that it isn’t *ever *painful, just that it isn’t always.